Journal: Tyndale Bulletin
Volume: TYNBUL 74:1 (NA 2023)
Article: The Divine Christology Of ‘Remember Me’ (Luke 23:42) In Light Of Lament
Author: Channing L. Crisler

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The Divine Christology Of ‘Remember Me’ (Luke 23:42) In Light Of Lament

Channing L. Crisler

Associate Professor of New Testament
College of Christian Studies, Anderson University
[email protected]

Abstract

Luke’s crucifixion scene includes a brief and unique exchange between the crucified Jesus and an unidentified crucified individual often referred to as the ‘penitent thief’. The dialogue between the two only spans two verses (Luke 23:42–43). Among the words they exchange, interpreters sometimes neglect the thief’s request – ‘remember me’ (μνήσθητί μου) – and its Christological implications. This article explores those implications given the request’s intertextual and intratextual features as well as its reception history. Based on these features, the overarching argument is that the cry ‘remember me’ functions as a dying lament shaped by similar laments in Israel’s Scriptures. The ‘remember me’ of this ‘lamenting thief’ is a request for divine forgiveness, mercy, and vindication. Such cries are normally directed to Israel’s God alone within the cultural heritage of Second Temple Judaism. In this way, Luke not only includes Jesus within the divine identity of Israel’s God, but, in the climactic scene of his biography, he brings him into the deepest contours of that relationship, namely the cry for deliverance in the face of death and judgement.

1. Introduction

The Eastern Orthodox compilation of hagiographies entitled the Synaxarion contains a couplet in honour of Luke’s penitent criminal on Good Friday.1 It reads ‘Eden’s locked gates the Thief has opened wide, by putting in the key, “Remember me.”’ The couplet reflects the main contours of the brief dialogue in Luke 23:39–43, including Jesus’s promise of paradise in response to one criminal’s request – ‘Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom’

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(Luke 23:42). This dialogue has captured the imaginations of interpreters for centuries. Of the twenty-four Greek words exchanged between Jesus and this thief, the adverb σήμερον, along with its soteriological implications, has probably garnered the most attention.2 It has understandably spurred theological conjecture about issues such as the intermediate state of Christian disciples. However, I am more fascinated by ...