Remember // Lent 2026: The Way of the Cross // Luke 23:27-43

Tyler’s Lent Week 4 sermon, “Remember Us,” centered on Luke 23:26-43 and the way the crucifixion confronts our assumptions about Jesus, power, and what salvation is supposed to look like. He emphasized that many in Jesus’ day wanted a Messiah who would overthrow Rome, but Jesus revealed a very different Kingdom, one marked not by domination, coercion, or control, but by humility, sacrifice, love, and solidarity with the powerless. The cross, in that sense, does not simply save us, it also challenges us, exposing the ways we still prefer worldly power to the way of Christ. 

From there, Tyler reflected on the public humiliation of Jesus at the cross and described the crucifixion as an invitation to a posture of “power under.” Rather than retaliating, defending Himself, or matching violence with violence, Jesus endures mocking and abuse while praying, “Father, forgive them.” Tyler connected that posture to the life of discipleship, urging the church to examine where we may be missing Jesus today, especially in the way we treat the poor, the marginalized, the oppressed, and those whose suffering is easy to ignore. He framed the cross as a call to humble listening, compassion, and active participation in God’s restorative work in the world. 

The sermon then turned to the criminal beside Jesus who asks, “remember me,” which Tyler treated as the emotional and spiritual center of the message. He noted that this plea echoes Israel’s long biblical cry for God to remember His people, not because God is forgetful, but because human beings fear abandonment in the midst of pain. Tyler said that in this criminal’s request we hear the longing that lives in all of us: the longing to know that God has not left us, that suffering is not the end of the story, and that restoration is still coming. In the darkest possible moment, this man sees what others miss, that in Jesus, hope is still present. 

Tyler closed by naming how easy it is, when we feel unsafe or forgotten, to reach for the very things the cross rejects: power, control, coercion, and fear. Against that instinct, he invited the church to look for signs of God’s faithfulness in ordinary life and to keep choosing the hope of the cross. His main point was that the cross reshapes our view of both Jesus and power, reminding us that hope comes by way of humility, sacrifice, and love, and that Jesus still remembers His people.