“The mirror of death will often reflect the genuine nature of the heart. ”
There they hung, arms outstretched, wrists and feet pierced with spikes. The hot Mediterranean sun beat down upon them relentlessly. It dried the streams of blood which flowed from their wounds while it continued to split their already cracked lips and add to their overwhelming fatigue. The pain, the humiliation, the difficult breathing, the crowds jeering and cheering made the hours spread before them like an immense expanse too far to travel. All of these things produced the worst day of their lives.
Now, you would think such circumstances would have brought these three together. After all, tragedy shared usually creates a bridge of understanding and fellowship that doesn't exist during the normal day to day experiences of life. Take a bunch of people, put them in a common predicament, and you will find that they usually walk out the other side knowing and respecting each other to a greater degree then ever before.
But not in this case. Here we have three people who were enduring one of the most inhumane, humiliating experiences ever devised by man and two of them took the opportunity to pick on the third. In Matthew 27:44, we read, "In the same way the robbers who were crucified with him also heaped insults on him." What does that say about these men? You would think that they'd be sympathetic enough to at least keep their mouths shut. But they didn't. We have two crucified men ridiculing Jesus. That's like two men with a noose around their neck ridiculing the third, or two men on death row, making fun of the third. The hardness of their hearts amazes me!
Usually when someone is dying, their true character surfaces. The mirror of death will often reflect the genuine nature of the heart. But again, if that is true in this case, what kind of men are we dealing with here? Cold, hateful bullies, never mind the fact that they are criminals, guilty of their crimes and deserving of death as one of them will later admit. Such dark cruelty doesn't often surface in the human heart.
Yet, there they were, joining in with the crowd. "Hey, miracle worker, how about getting us down?" "Hey, king, how do you like your new throne? It's not very comfortable, but it has a good view!" What did Jesus do in response? Nothing! He took it. He showed his true character by asking His Heavenly Father to forgive them. Never did he tell them to be quiet; never did he sink to their level. He just looked at them with eyes that expressed love mixed with pain. What an image of strength and self-control. To be able to call ten thousand angels, to be able to squash these two criminals like bugs on a windshield, but then to refuse - that's more strength than I can imagine!
As the hours passed, one thief continued his barrage of hatred, but the other began to have second thoughts. Why? Was it the approach of his death? Was it the pain and fatigue? Was it because He realized that Jesus was like no one else he had ever seen before? Maybe it was the waves of mocking hatred that rose from the crowd. You have to be someone very dangerous, very powerful for people to hate you that much! Probably it was a combination of all of the above. Whatever happened, God reached through the blindness of this man and showed him enough truth to illicit a spark of faith. He asked, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom."
Did the thief really believe with certainty that Jesus would escape the cross and establish a kingdom? Or was he hedging his bets and covering all the bases more than anything else? We can only speculate, but it's really not important. What is important are the words of our Lord. Jesus answered him, "I tell you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise." I find Jesus' response amazing. I might even go so far as to say that Jesus' response bothers me. It confuses me, it frustrates me, even though I am ever so thankful for it.
Think about it for a minute. Here's this guy who, up to a few minutes before, was still singing tenor in the choir that mocked Jesus. Then he has the unmitigated gall to ask Jesus for a favor? Here is a man who was never baptized, never took communion, never endured a church service, never went to Sunday School, never put a dime in the collection plate, and yet Jesus gives him a crown next to us, next to me? This man had nothing to offer. He would never be able to share the good news with his friends and family. He would never be able to express the results of his faith. He couldn't do anything for the Lord or His coming Kingdom and yet, Jesus, with hands and feet nailed to the cross, still comes to this man and enfolds him in his love.
Now, I hate to say this, but to be honest with you, Jesus' words to the thief leaves me saying, "but, that's not fair! It's just not right!" Let me share with you a quote from Max Lucado's book, "In the Grip of Grace." The quote deals with mass murderer Jeffery Dahmer. Max says,
"Know what disturbs me most about Jeffery Dahmer? What disturbs me most are not his acts, though they are disgusting. Dahmer was convicted of seventeen murders. Eleven corpses were found in his apartment. He cut off arms. He ate body parts. My thesaurus has 204 synonyms for vile, but each falls short of describing a man who kept skulls in his refrigerator and hoarded a human heart. He redefined the boundary for brutality.
The Milwaukee monster dangled from the lowest rung of human conduct and then dropped. But that's not what troubles me most. Can I tell you what troubles me most about Jeffery Dahmer?
Not his trial, as disturbing as it was, with all those pictures of him sitting serenely in court, face frozen, motionless. No sign of remorse, no hint of regret. Remember his steely eyes and impassive face? But I don't speak of him because of his trial. There is another reason. Can I tell you what really troubles me about Jeffery Dahmer. May I tell you what does?
His conversion.
Months before an inmate murdered him, Jeffery Dahmer became a Christian. Said he repented. Was sorry for what he did. Profoundly sorry. Said he put his faith in Christ. Was baptized. Started life over. Began reading Christian books and attending chapel.
Sins washed. Soul cleansed. Past forgiven. That troubles me. It shouldn't, but it does. Grace for a cannibal?"
I guess what I've been trying to say all along is this: My pride, my self-righteousness, my distorted sense of fair-play screams out when I look at the thief. The impulse of my hard heart doesn't want God to make short cuts for someone who doesn't, in my not so humble opinion, deserve it. Grace should be offered only to those who are average sinners, like me, and you. Hope you don't mind being called average!
But to think that way is to misunderstand my reality, and your reality. The fact is that I am, and you are, that thief on the cross! How can I say that? After all, haven't I been a Christian for 15 years? And didn't I work my way through seminary to learn about God and prepare myself for ministry? And didn't I respond to His call upon my life to go into full time ministry? Haven't I lead people to Christ and served the Kingdom all these years? Doesn't that mean that I've amassed a fortune of brownie points while the thief remained totally bankrupted to the very moment of being ushered through the door of eternity?
Well, thanks for sticking up for me, but it only looks that way from our perspective. From God's perspective, the thief and I are on an even playing field. Actually, if I were honest, I'd have to admit that he may have been a bit ahead of me on the humility front because he understood that he was guilty and he didn't ask for much, just to be remembered. Nowhere in his mind did he think that God owed him anything and I can't honestly say the same thing about myself. What about you? Can you say that about yourself? Can you say that you never felt that God owed you?
You see, the bottom line as far as God's concerned is that no one deserves salvation, no one deserves a relationship with a Holy, Perfect God. No one deserves Heaven instead of hell. And no one can do anything to change that fact! Why? Because we have all sinned and fallen short of the glory of God and we all deserve death. And that's the way it is, even for those of us who are just average sinners. That's the way it is even for those who have spent a lifetime serving and sacrificing for God - For our righteousness is like filthy rags before a Holy God. So when we look at Jesus extending His grace to the thief on the cross, instead of pointing our fingers, we should see our face, and hear our voice say, "Lord, remember me".
I know that. I understand that. But I can't help saying, "but. . . !" And Jesus replies by saying,
"For the kingdom of heaven is like a landowner who went out early in the morning to hire men to work in his vineyard. He agreed to pay them a denarius for the day and sent them into his vineyard. "About the third hour he went out and saw others standing in the marketplace doing nothing. He told them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard, and I will pay you whatever is right.' So they went. "He went out again about the sixth hour and the ninth hour and did the same thing. About the eleventh hour he went out and found still others standing around. He asked them, 'Why have you been standing here all day long doing nothing?' "'Because no one has hired us,' they answered. "He said to them, 'You also go and work in my vineyard.' "When evening came, the owner of the vineyard said to his foreman, 'Call the workers and pay them their wages, beginning with the last ones hired and going on to the first.' "The workers who were hired about the eleventh hour came and each received a denarius. So when those came who were hired first, they expected to receive more. But each one of them also received a denarius. When they received it, they began to grumble against the landowner. 'These men who were hired last worked only one hour,' they said, 'and you have made them equal to us who have borne the burden of the work and the heat of the day.' "But he answered one of them, 'Friend, I am not being unfair to you. Didn't you agree to work for a denarius? Take your pay and go. I want to give the man who was hired last the same as I gave you. Don't I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?' "So the last will be first, and the first will be last" (Matt 20:1-16).
I guess I'm like the grumbling worker, not very flattering is it? The bottom line to this entire issue of grace is in verse 15, "Don't I have the right to do what I want." My problem is that I'm not as generous as God is. So in my less then generous bent, I want to limit the generosity of God. And in so doing, I am telling God what He will and will not do! Imagine! And guess what? I have a good idea that you're in the same boat. How can I say that? Well, when was the last time someone accused you of being too gracious?
Ok, so what's the point? What do we need to take and apply to our lives from Jesus words to the thief?
Well, we need to recognize that our God is a gracious God. He has amazing grace that extends further than we can think or imagine. We should therefore expect that God will work in ways that will shock our ungracious, works-related list of goodies that we use to prove to ourselves that we are the very best kind of Christian. We should expect that God will rattle our cages and extend His hand and His love in ways that we just don't understand.
This doesn't mean, of course, that God is happy with Christians who live like thieves and look for loopholes and deathbed confessions. God has communicated His will concerning salvation, growth and service and we are not to ignore His wishes because the thief got in. As Paul tell us in Romans 6, grace is not a licence to sin even more so that grace may abound.
But, having said that, what would happen if every Christian lived with the victory of knowing that God loves them fully and completely, not because of what they've done on any particular day, but because He has chosen to love them and extend His grace to them as followers of Jesus? Fully understanding such grace should cause us to have a contagious, joyous, loved-filled Christianity!
Finally, what would happen if we tried to be as gracious with others as Christ has been with us? Hey, we could start off slow and begin with just those in the Church! Then when we get that down, we could try doing that with the world around us. What would happen if the world saw the outreached hands of grace beckoning them to the Lord, rather then fingers pointing them in the direction of Hell? May it come to pass Lord Jesus!