For several months now I have wanted to sit and put fingers to keyboard. Alas, modern life in 2019 with two children and busy schedules has virtually swallowed fall, and here we are just a few weeks from Christmas. Bellies are filled with Thanksgiving feasts now, and the to-do lists are never ending. The tasks are always too many for the short hours in each day that passes so quickly.
I have thought often of this mysterious man on the cross and the message he sends. It is a mysterious whisper spoken to me with the utmost beautiful message. One well worth the time to ponder and explore. The thing that I love so much about this story is the absolute hope and redemptive quality that it illustrates. It does so in such a concise and definitive manner. It is as if it lays heady arguments to rest in one exhalation and breathes life and hope into all of reality.
We may discuss and discourse till we are blue in the face, the whys and wherefore of what is moral, what are ethics, what is sin and why. Sometimes these conversations may be helpful in navigating a certain understanding of an objective reality too large to fully comprehend, but they always seem to lack a certain something one is searching to fill. There seems to be a void that remains, and the conversations may be circular or even combative. But do they ever really accomplish a longing that we seek? It is like trying to organize an overly full closet — as soon as another washcloth is pulled out to use, the refolding begins...we do and we do, we talk and we talk. The vanity is palpable.
The thief however brings us something fresh. I believe he brings us through Christ that which we truly seek. Who is this blessed being next to Christ on the cross? We are left to our imaginations....was he a petty apple thief? Perhaps, although probably unlikely since we find him on the cross condemned to death. One might assume with a certain amount of certainty that his trespasses were a bit stronger. If they are not though, there is still an interesting message...perhaps about the harshness of the world? Perhaps a shared experience by this lowly thief and the great high Savior of mankind, strategically placed side by side.....kind of funny to think about.
What if he is the worst kind of criminal? What if fate gave this poor man what would seem a miserable lot in life? Maybe he was a fatherless child who from a young age stole to help his mother and siblings to survive? What if he was the very darkest character one could imagine ... a life of poverty, living in a constant state of fight and flight. Maybe drinking at a tavern to gain fearlessness, running off without paying his bill, finding a widow’s home to use her to satisfy his carnal urges, only to dispose of her afterward and take the cash and jewels. He would then run to the next town unknown, use up his spoils and then plot his next conquest.
It might be that when he was caught and condemned to his fate, he actually sighed a sigh of relief, knowing full well he was deserving of the worst kind of punishment and being finally able to let go of this constant fight for life. Was it a state of exhaustion and a giving up of himself that allowed him to view Christ with such clarity, that others in his midst could not?
Then Christ's most beautiful and powerful message, to the thief and to us all. "Truly I say to you today you will see me in Paradise” (Luke 23:43). Wow, how breathtaking and exhilarating. How could he be forgiven so fully and completely? It seems to me that alone could be a testament to Christ's nature, in some ways so unlike ours. No time needed to heal, to process the wrong doings, weighing his fate with circumstance, finding justifications ... no ‘yes I forgive you now, and you will have one year hereafter to prove that you have indeed changed your horrid ways’. No, this is not what is said, but rather: you have seen the Truth in an instant Mr. Thief and that is enough for eternal Paradise'.
The message I hear through this interchange is, no matter before dear child, no matter after dear child; right here, right now, I am available to ALL. Yes, All are indeed invited to the table to partake, there is no argument here, it is already a done deal. We may not even know the extent of our own before. We may well be blind by our own deceptions and the narrative we tell ourselves. The one we are able to handle at this moment. We certainly do not know the extent of our afters, but we can know without a doubt here and now what is available. This is Grace, saving grace, undeserved and unearned yet fully available.
