Two men met God. One walked away.

Luke 23:39ff¹ & elsewhere

I want to take you to look at two more men who met with Jesus. We have already looked at two religious men, Job and Paul².

Job was a consciencious religious man, full of good works and prosperous. The archetypal nice man for whom no-one would ever have a bad word.

Paul was a religious man, but a fanatic. From what we know of him he would have not been out of place in the streets of the middle east today.

Both of them needed to change their way of thinking and it took an encounter with God to do that.

The men we look at now are very different kinds of men. The only people who would have mourned over the loss of two men we consider tonight would have been their two mothers. They were criminals and robbers. They were crucified with Jesus.

Can you imagine what it is like to be crucified? Can you imagine the screams of these men as they were hung and nailed onto their crosses next to Jesus? I cannot imagine that they were careful about the language that they used. Jesus was put up first however, and they would have heard, or rather perhaps not heard him, for he was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb before he shearers he opened not his mouth. What a contrast there would have been between the Lord’s behaviour and that of these two men in the face of their executioners.

But as they hung there and as they listened, they heard what other people were saying about Jesus. Someone in the crowd cried out: He saved others let him save himself. Come down from the cross! So they shouted out to him as well: You! Christ! Save us! Their language was blasphemous in every way. The world was glad to be rid of them.

But as they hung there one of them noticed something different. He saw that Jesus did not deserve to die and his attitude changed. Not only his attitude, but his language changed as well. He spoke to the other man – listen to his words: Don’t you fear God, as you are under the same sentence? It is right for us to be punished; we are getting what we deserve, but this man has done nothing wrong!

We don’t know what else the thief knew of Jesus but while he hung on his own cross he changed his attitude towards him. He saw who Jesus is, and now submits to him. He turned to Jesus and asked for nothing more than to be remembered: Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.

What a change! The man had done nothing good. He deserved what he was getting and he knew it. Little did he expect what the Lord would say to him then: Yes, today you will be with me in paradise.

He was a changed man, but there was no time for him to make amends and change his way of life. He was about to die. The cross would soon get him. Later in the day the soldiers would break his legs to hasten his death – if he had survived that long. But he committed himself to Jesus and Jesus tells him: Today you will be with me in paradise. It is not the good that we do that will take us to heaven. He could do none. It is the death of Jesus Christ for our sins that gets us there.

The other thief was not changed. He cursed and blasphemed to the last.

Two men met Jesus. Both were rubbish as far as society was concerned, but one of them was changed – and he committed himself to Jesus and Jesus took him into his kingdom.

We are in the same boat as those two. We have done wrong. We have blasphemed and cursed God. We deserve to die and must die, and there is nothing we can do about it to change it or make amends.

We all need to be changed – and it is in being changed – being born again – that we commit ourselves to Jesus and because he died, not because he deserved it, but for our sins, he takes us to heaven.

Where do we stand? With the thief who gave himself to Jesus? Or still outside?

¹ And an inscription also was written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: This is the king of the Jews. Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed him, saying, “If you are the Christ, save yourself and us.” But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And Jesus said to him, “Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.” Luke 23:37-43
² See Job, Paul and two thieves