The Second Word from the Cross
Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise. Luke 23:43
It is surprising, perhaps even shocking, that Jesus’ second ‘word’ from the cross is to a criminal. He moves seamlessly from prayer to his heavenly Father to a conversation with the ‘lowest of the low’.
Do you ever wonder how it came to be that the pure Son of God was crucified between two criminals? Perhaps this was an intentional action to reduce his credibility and status even further, as he becomes obedient to death, even death on the cross, pouring out all his rights, standing, status and power.
We often, as does the old hymn, speak of the ‘thief’ on the cross:
The dying thief rejoiced to see
that fountain in his day;
and there may I, though vile as he
wash all my sins away.
But the words ‘criminal’ here, or Tom Wright’s translation, ‘bad character’ are probably better translations. This may have been, for example, an insurrectionist or terrorist. Whatever, he, in a sense, deserves his fate and know it.
There are, of course, two such ‘bad characters’ in the story, ‘framing’ the cross of Christ. One rails at him, the other pleads with him. One rejects him, the other receives him. This is a place where decisions are made. The criminal to whom he speaks this ‘word’ has just declared: ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom’. Cardinal Basil Hume in Hope from the Cross – Reflections on Jesus Seven Last Words, quotes from a priest who said:
Cardinal Hume continues:
And it can be so for us too. It needs faith and daring humility.
The response of Jesus to the criminal begins with these words, ‘Truly, I say to you.’ What Jesus is about to speak into this man’s life, at his ‘death–bed conversion’ is more true than anything else he has ever experienced, more real than the physical world around him. Real truth is eternal, not passing, and he is entering into that.
Then Jesus declares ‘Today you will be with me in Paradise’. Nothing could be further from Paradise than the experience he is going through, tortured and dying. That ‘word’ is to be fulfilled ‘today’. When did the dying thief enter Paradise? Was it at the moment of his death that day? Or was it happening even then, as eternal life invaded his very soul? The truth is that being in Christ is being in Paradise both sides of eternity, and even in the moments of challenge and despair. The Russian novelist, Tolstoy, knew that when he wrote:
So, however late you have left it, however far you have fallen, however irreligious you have been, whatever sins you have committed, the truth is that you can look to Jesus and be saved. No one is too late; no one is too far gone. Look to him now.