The Thief On The Cross

Happy Sunday, everyone, and happy Thanksgiving early to each and all of you.

Hope it's a great, great time. We definitely have a lot to be thankful about, right?

Today, we will do what we've been doing for the last 14 weeks, right?

And that is that we will focus in on one of the conversations,

one of the many conversations that Jesus had some 2,000 years ago.

Now, if you do something for 14 weeks, you are either in a rut or in a rhythm.

And I hope that this series has felt more like rhythm-like to you and that you

have been able to apply truths to our life, that we've been able to see the

greatness of Jesus throughout this series, and that it has helped us, motivate us.

Made us more like Jesus, all of that. I hope all of that happens.

And I hope, again, we pray that that is even a part of today as well.

Today's focus will be on the conversation Jesus had with a thief on a cross.

The Bible does not tell us his name, only that Jesus had this conversation while

both men were dying on crosses next to each other.

So, I mean, really, this is a great logo, but we could sort of really like remove

the red comfy chairs and kind of envision more of a wooden, rugged cross meant

for criminals to torture them and to execute.

It's quite the picture.

Crucifixions are nothing short of gruesome. And so before we get to this conversation,

I think it's important that we pay a little bit of attention here because here's the thing.

There's a thief on a cross and Jesus on the cross, and Jesus is the main character.

He's the hero. We want to make sure we get that. And so I really want to build

out around Jesus as we go through here.

Crucifixions are nothing short of gruesome. Part of the crucifixion process

was to inflict as much suffering,

as much pain as possible, and to do it as slowly as possible until ultimately it would end in death.

Jesus and this thief would have been in tremendous pain while going through this conversation.

Simple things like breathing and talking would be extremely difficult to do while being executed.

Jesus's entire body would have been completely exhausted and totally compromised

from the physical and emotional abuse that he has received leading up to this

point and then including into the crucifixion.

I took some time to just kind of gather the facts best I could through the gospel

of like what Jesus endured, how he was tortured during the last 24 hours.

And I'm going to walk us through some of those highlighted points as we lay

this backdrop for this conversation.

If I start at Luke 22, verse 44, just before his arrest, there was this verse

Luke 22:44

that says, his sweat became like drops of blood.

Falling down to the ground. This apparently is a rare phenomenon that can happen.

It's called hematidrosis.

It occurs when extreme stress happens in the small capillaries surrounding the sweat glands.

They burst and blood mixed with sweat pours out of the sweat glands.

So with that kind of intensity, now's what happens. Shortly after that,

Jesus was betrayed. He was arrested.

He was deserted by his disciples. He was taken to the high priest's house.

And that's where we find the first blow, literally a slap or a punch to his

face from an officer of the high priest.

Shortly after that, he was blindfolded, beaten, spit upon, had his beard pulled out.

After this beating, he was sent to Pontius Pilate. Remember that from last week,

who questioned him. After the questioning, he sent him to Herod.

After finding out that Jesus was a Galilean, Herod then kind of just gave him

the rough-up treatment with him and his boys.

They treated him with contempt, it says. They mocked him. They dressed him with

a royal robe, and they sent him back to Pilate.

Pilate questioned him some more, and then giving in to the crowd's wishes,

he ordered Jesus to be crucified.

And this is where things get greatly intensified.

Before being led to the crucifixion site, Pilate ordered that Jesus be flogged.

If the information about a Roman flogging is remotely close to being accurate,

this would have been a horrific experience.

In fact, the floggings were so bad that Roman law would not allow a Roman citizen to undergo it.

Jews, yes. Romans, no.

Here's what happened. First, the victim would be stripped of all clothing and

then tied to a post with his hands above his head.

He would then be flogged by one or two people with a whip.

And it talks about this handle being like 18 inches long. And out of the handle

were nine leather straps.

And at the end of the straps were tied in small pieces of lead,

bone and metal, sharp objects.

And you can see what's gonna happen next, that as the lashes were given,

it would literally start tearing away the flesh with each lash.

It is reported time and time again, if you read through these Roman floggings,

that as they progressed, muscles, vital organs, even spines were openly visible

because of these type of beatings.

According to the Jewish law, they had a law that said after 40 of these lashes, we stop.

They usually stopped at 39, just to make sure their count was right.

The Romans had no such law.

So it's really, maybe he had more of those lashes than we can even expect, I'm not sure.

But after this flogging, the victim then would be untied.

Often they were unconscious and just collapsed to the ground.

Some even died, never even experienced the whole crucifixion.

Jesus, it seems, survived without losing consciousness.

And then he was faced with the next torture. They would then put his clothes back on him.

They led him to the praetorium, which would be like a Roman headquarters building, right?

And there, now after some time, they strip him again, probably tearing off open

wounds, you know how your clothes can stick to a wound, right?

That probably happened, he said that.

They placed a scarlet robe on him. They made a crown of thorns, went about mocking him,

made sure that crown of thorn really hit where the Bible talks about they hit

him with a reed, a rod, driving in those deep thorns into his head.

They would have been like two inches long, extremely sharp. And what do we know about head wounds?

They can happen. They bleed easily and profusely. Imagine a bloodified Jesus,

and that is very accurate. Amen.

After the flogging, the victim was made to carry his cross to the crucifixion site.

Most scholars and historians believe that it's not likely that he carried the

full cross that we sometimes see in movies and even in Sunday school materials,

but rather he just carried maybe the cross beam of the cross.

They estimate that that was maybe 100 to 150 pounds in weight.

According to the Bible, Jesus was so weakened from his beatings that he could

not carry this cross to the crucifixion site.

And a man named Simon from Cyrene, he was told to carry Jesus's cross for him.

The distance that had to be traveled to get there, it was believed to be about 650 yards.

So if you're a football guy, six and a half football fields,

and they would take a path that was called the Via Della Rosa,

which meant way of suffering.

I think it's fair to say if we look through these hours of Jesus that's going

on he's probably 36 hours or so without sleep by the time he reaches the crucifixion site,

he's probably in a condition what a hospital would call critical condition,

and there,

at this crucifixion site his hands and more likely his wrist were nailed to

the cross Hands would not hold the weight of a man. It would just tear through.

I'm sure someone experienced that the bad way until he found out how to fix that.

And it seems that the Romans had perfected this treatment of nailing through

the wrist, through the ulna bone and the radius bone, right into the median

nerve. So it would have maximum support, maximum pain.

And they would do this with five to seven inch nails, spikes.

After being nailed to the cross, the body would be hoisted up with the victim attached.

This often caused the shoulders to become dislocated.

Perhaps it's a prophecy of Psalm 22, 14, that talked about Jesus saying,

all of my bones are out of joint.

And then once the cross was set up, the victim's feet were placed one on top

of the other and nailed to the vertical beam, usually in a bent angled position.

And sometimes a small platform was placed just below the feet.

And that would help tremendously for the victim to be able to breathe.

Because crucifixions were not meant to be quick killings of the victims,

but last days, often many, many days.

And that plate at the bottom would allow a person to be able to exhale while

in that crucifixion position.

So days would pass and you can imagine that then the victims suffer from severe

cramps, dehydration was common, lungs slowly filling up with fluid.

Bugs starting to eat into the wounds even

birds some victims even lost

their eyes to the birds so you can see this

is a gruesome picture of crucifixion and then when the victim could no longer

push themselves up they would lapse into unconsciousness and suffocate so death

by asphyxiation if the romans wanted to speed up this process they would break

the legs of the victims by shattering the shin bone until it broke.

And thereby they could no longer lift themselves up. And once that happened,

death would occur at a few minutes.

We know that this was done to the two thieves outside of Jesus because John

19 talks about them breaking their legs because the Jews wanted them dead,

buried because the Sabbath was just a few hours away.

And we also know that Jesus's legs were not broken.

That was also a prophecy and from Psalm 34 that not a bone on his body would be broken.

And so for Jesus, he didn't get the broken legs. He got to pierce through his side.

So that's the setting of things that are happening and are yet still to happen to Jesus.

When I run through that, I realized these are the kinds of things you should

talk about on Good Friday and Easter.

I think it's appropriate to remember from time to time. So here we are in November.

Because this is the deal. This just shouts, God loves you.

God loves you. God loves you. God loves you. For God to allow his son to be

crushed, killed, murdered is an act of love, and he did it for you and for me.

And so with great generosity, great appreciation, I hope that we can hold to

those things as though gruesome, wow, what love Jesus has, what love God has for us.

So here we go. Let's look at this passage here. Luke is the only gospel writer

who records this conversation with the thief.

All four of the writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke, John, they all mention the crucifixion

of Jesus, but only Luke writes about this conversation.

And if you don't know this, I want to tell you this.

It's true. Luke writes, but he was not an eyewitness to this account.

He did not witness Jesus's crucifixion.

As a matter of fact, it's highly unlikely, very unlikely. I confidently say

that Luke never met Jesus.

Luke was saved, came to become a follower of Jesus after the death of Jesus

while hearing the apostle Paul.

And maybe you can remember that Luke was a doctor. He left that profession and

he traveled with Paul telling people about Jesus and the gospel.

If you were at Good News, when we did the series on the life of Paul,

maybe some of these things ring a bell to us.

So how is it then that Luke knows so much and writes so much about Jesus some

50 years later, if Luke never met him personally?

Ah, I think that's one of the things that makes this book of Luke so unique.

Luke gathers testimony after testimony.

And he is, you know, you do not have to be an eyewitness to be,

to write an accurate biography. That's the kind of stuff still happens today.

People don't, they don't know the person personally. They didn't even live during

the same time. They can still write an accurate biography.

So Luke's account is not even less of an account because he wasn't an eyewitness.

And of course, let's remember all the writings that they do is under the influence

of the Holy Spirit. it. So what he's writing is accurate.

He can be trusted for it. So all that, take your Bible, go to Luke chapter 23.

Luke 23 · chapter mention

Pilate has just given the orders to crucify Jesus, and that's what's happening.

Jesus is down to his last six hours before he dies when we come to verse 32,

and that's where I want to start reading today.

Two other criminals were also led away to be executed with him.

When they arrived at the place called the Skull, they crucified him there along

with the criminals, one on the right and one on the left.

So the Skull, that's the name Luke uses as the place where criminals were executed by crucifixion.

The other gospel writers refer to this place as Golgotha.

It's the same place. It's not a conflict. It's not a disagreement between the writers.

It's actually languages, different languages being used. So the translations are altered slightly.

In Latin, it would also be called Calvary. It's a song that we use songs that

use the word Calvary. So that's the setting here.

Hebrew, Aramaic, Greek, very common language used among the people of Israel.

So Golgotha, which is called the skull, appears to be some type of hill or elevated

area outside the city walls of Jerusalem.

And there's a couple of theories as to why it's called the skull.

One theory of why it could be called a skull is that the hill itself,

the area itself, it kind of had a skull looking shape to it. That's one idea.

There's another one that says, well, the things that happened on this area,

the crucifixions alone were happening and that gave it the name,

the skull, which I suppose in kind of a cool way of a dreary,

dreary place, it seems to make sense.

Hey, let's go to the skull and watch a crucifixion. I'm not sure,

regardless of why it's named or what it's named.

According to Luke, there are three people being led to be executed.

Jesus is one of them and he's in the middle. And on each side of him is a criminal.

And I don't know if you've ever noticed, like most pictures that get drawn out

about this, the cross in the middle is always bigger.

I don't know if that's really true. You can do with that what you want.

It seems to me that Jesus would not have this special cross.

He was treated as a criminal, just like everyone else. Roman's doing their job.

Three crosses. Let's get this done. Verse 34.

So the first recorded words by Luke that Jesus spoke from the cross are words

spoken to God, God the Father.

Jesus is praying, and he's not praying a get-me-down prayer.

Jesus is praying a prayer of forgiveness. He is modeling what he has been teaching.

He is practicing what he's been preaching.

Jesus taught his disciples to love their enemies and to pray for those who persecute him.

In verse 34, mark it right there.

Another great reminder, Jesus doing what Jesus does.

Excellent, perfect role model.

And these verses also contain a fulfillment of prophecy.

When the soldiers gambled for his clothes, that's what it means when they cast

lots, they fulfilled the prophecy of Psalm 22, 18. And it says,

they divided my garments among themselves and they cast lots for my clothing.

Said thousands of years early, and here it is happening.

All four of the gospel writers mentioned this fulfillment.

So a Jewish man, what happened there would be, a Jewish man would normally wear

five pieces of clothing. He would wear sandals, an inner cloak,

a headpiece, a belt, and an outer cloak or a tunic.

And what happens at crucifixions, those things would be divided up among the

soldiers and they would cast lots, which was like a gambling technique,

maybe like rolling the dice to see who got things up. And that's how they would divvy things up.

So a question that is sometimes that's asked is this, was Jesus wearing any

clothes when he got crucified? And the answer is.

We don't know for sure, probably not. And if so, not much. If the Romans honored

the Jewish customs, the Jews would have worn a loincloth.

Their desire was for a man not to be completely naked in a public execution.

However, the Romans didn't have such a standard and they were known to execute

their people completely naked.

And I think if you keep in mind, the Romans could care less what the Jews thought, so I don't know.

But what we have for sure is Jesus and two thieves and they are either naked or nearly naked.

And verse 35, the people stood watching and even the leaders kept scoffing saying,

he saved others, let him save himself.

If this is God's Messiah, the chosen one.

The soldiers also mocked him. They came offering him sour wine and said,

if you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.

An inscription was above him. This is the king of the Jews.

Then one of the criminals hanging there began to yell insults at him. Aren't you the Messiah?

Save yourself and us. So this inscription that would have been above him,

it would have been written in three different languages,

Hebrew, Greek, and Latin, and nearly every person knew one of those languages

so that anyone that came by, they would know who this was and what he was being

charged for, why he was being executed.

The full written out statement would be, this is Jesus the Nazarene, the king of the Jews.

But what you see is the constant theme of verses 35 through 39 is that there

is a lot of scoffing, a lot of mocking, a lot of insulting, a lot of belittling, all aimed at Jesus.

So you've got this gathered crowd, like what happens at a sporting event,

and they're all watching.

The Jewish leaders are there. They're right there in the mix doing what they

have been doing literally now for hours since they arrested Jesus,

firing off with their sneering remarks, remarks like we see here.

He saved others, let him save himself.

If this is God, Messiah, the chosen one.

Now what they were saying was absolutely 100% correct.

But how they were saying it and the hate that came with it and the disrespect

that came with it, the arrogance about it.

So you've got this crowd watching, the Jewish leaders with all their slandering.

And we also see that the Roman soldiers, they are right there with the rest

of the haters jumping in on this mockery bandwagon.

And they are offering him this cheap, sour wine, which is yet another prophecy being fulfilled.

Psalm 69, 21 says, and for my thirst, they gave me vinegar to drink.

That is the equivalent of sour wine.

And finally, we have the thieves themselves getting into the insulting action as well.

And I do say thieves, plural.

Verse 39 says that a thief did it.

But in Matthew's account, and I think Mark's as well, they say it's a little differently.

So here you see that the one of the criminals hanging began to yell insults at him.

And the second verse, Matthew 27, in the same way, even the criminals,

plural, who were crucified with him.

Now, why the difference there? I think it's because Luke is really focused in

on this one thief who has this enormous change of position.

And we see that with what happens next in this next verse, verse 40.

Matthew doesn't refer to this, neither does Mark, but Luke picks up on this.

And it's this, but the other answered, rebuking him. So he's rebuking the other criminal.

Don't you even fear God since you are undergoing the same punishment?

We are punished justly because we're getting back what we deserve for the things we did.

But this man has done nothing wrong.

And I think this is a really big point of our conversation that's going on here.

What in the world happened?

How did this guy, this criminal, go from being one that is mocking and insulting

Jesus to now apparently he is realizing that this man is innocent,

Jesus, he's fearing God.

How did he go from insults to understand that Jesus is completely innocent?

How did this thief become enlightened to the fact that the guy next to him was

God, the Messiah, the chosen one?

And you can ask a lot, a lot of questions about this, but here's what I think

we have to recognize is he did nothing on his own to do this.

That this is the work of Jesus in God.

It's possible that this guy heard of Jesus while he was in town before he was

in this crucifixion spot.

It's possible that he had family members or friends telling him about the Messiah

and somehow now he puts all this together.

Did he overhear Jesus's prayer at the beginning that Jesus had?

Did he see the inscription above Jesus and somehow, ah, that happened?

See, all of those things, they have to flow underneath the work of the Holy

Spirit and Jesus being at work in all of this?

Was there more conversation between Jesus and the two thieves that happened

that aren't recorded and we just don't know about? A lot of questions.

So few answers. But I will say, it's not like he did a bunch of stuff here.

He never got baptized, never attended church services, never went to Intro to

Good News. Like none of that happened.

So there's a sense that to believe in Jesus,

is a miracle brought on by Jesus. Like that is true.

What we do know is that after this thief rebukes the other thief for his continued

insults at Jesus and something that he was first doing himself,

now he says this in verse 42.

Jesus, remember me when you come to your kingdom. So get the picture here.

Here's a guy that we have every reason to believe he lived his life,

his entire life, the way he wanted to live it and no desire of Jesus being a part of it.

I think it's very safe to say that this man spent his life living it extremely

contrary to the way Jesus taught that we are to live a life.

And now, living that kind of lifestyle, that's the reason he is where he is,

like on a cross, receiving punishment.

And this guy, near the very end of his life, he asked Jesus to remember him,

when he gets to his kingdom.

Look at the response Jesus gives, verse 43. And he, Jesus, said to him,

the thief, I assure you, today you will be with me in paradise.

And my response time and time again as I read that verse is, wow.

Wow, wow, wow. Jesus is gonna do way more than just remember you, Mr. Thief.

He's going to do way more than that.

He is going to take you to paradise with him.

Paradise, that's a symbol often of heaven. It means garden or park, okay?

And there's an expression that we sometimes say, maybe you've heard of it,

right? Have you ever heard? That person is guilty as sin.

Ever heard that phrase, right? If ever there was the perfect fit of that person's

guiltiest sin, this thief fits it.

And this thief, so deserving of damnation, gets paradise.

Why? Something he did?

Something God did. He got paradise because Jesus said so.

Today, you'll be in paradise with me.

And that's the end of the conversation.

If we keep reading, it doesn't address the thief anymore, I don't believe,

but it does address Jesus in his last few minutes, and he dies.

And so, four observations for us that I think we can take from this conversation. First one is this.

It kind of goes back to the beginning of it. God answers prayers.

Maybe that sounds too simplistic. I hope you're not too Christian to overlook

that like that's a big thing.

Jesus is in sheer pain and agony. And as I said earlier, what's impressive of

how he prays and what's challenging about how he prays is he doesn't pray for himself.

It's not a self-centered prayer. It's not a get me down from here prayer.

It's a prayer for others.

When Jesus prayed, Father, forgive them, that included the thief on the cross.

And that prayer was answered almost immediately when this man,

by God alone, came to understand Jesus is innocent, I am not,

Jesus has the gift of eternal life and could take me to his kingdom and paradise.

Wow. And I say that to us as it should motivate us to be praying to God, God, forgive.

God, show grace. God, show mercy to people, especially the people who don't know God yet.

Especially, I don't know if you do this or not. I think it happens.

Especially people who we might think, there's no way that person can get saved.

But is anyone too lost for Jesus? Never. her, including us.

Jesus saves, God answers prayer, let's be a praying people for God to forgive.

Second, hard circumstances are prime for ministry opportunities.

Okay, though we have never experienced to the same degree what Jesus experienced,

like the beatings, the mockings, and certainly not the crucifixion,

but our faith speaks the loudest in the hardest seasons of life.

People might, maybe sort of, they take notice of our faith when all is well.

That's true, there's no doubt about that. Like maybe they see our successes or whatnot.

Maybe they listen to what we have to say when times are good in life.

Certainly the gospel is powerful and certainly it's at work during those times as well.

But I am going to tell you that by and far, it seems that how we handle hardships

and losses and struggles, they serve as this powerful gospel magnet,

and they make ministry opportunities for others.

It is during these times that when people around us, they're watching us,

it is at these times that they know that you're really real about all this Christianity stuff.

And I'm not saying that you should pray for these hardships to come into your

life so that you have these opportunities to give them.

I am saying this, you will have these hardships.

And when they come, by God's grace, it is a prime opportunity for the gospel

to shine and ministry opportunities to be there.

Here's a third observation.

Deathbed conversions happen.

This might be, and I think it is, the only example in the Bible of a person

near the end of their life that we see is saved, comes into relationship with

Jesus, however short that was.

And it's a great example for us. And here's why. It gives us hope.

It gives us hope that this can happen. It gives us hope that I bet we all in

here, we all have people that we know that right now they have zero interest

in Jesus, not interested at all. They wanna live their own life, their own way.

And you're like, you're worried for them. You're concerned for them. And guess what?

Deathbed conversions happen. And so that gives us hope. As long as there's life, there is hope.

Perhaps you already know somebody like this thief on the cross.

They lived their life their way, rejected Jesus. But at the very end, All that changed.

Somehow, Jesus and his grace, and they repented of their sins,

they put their trust in Jesus.

Deathbed conversions, last second salvation happens.

But that also leads to the fourth observation.

Don't presume the last second conversion will be available to you or anyone else you know.

While it is good that we have this example of a person that is snatched from

the damnation of hell and put into heaven right before their death,

maybe it's good that there's only one example of that.

It would be a very foolish thing to presume,

that you could live your life as you see fit and opposite and against God,

and then right before life's final buzzer goes off, you hit the game-winning Christian shot.

My coaching coming out, I guess.

Like, first of all, that's not even the gospel of you doing something and getting

it. It's not how it works.

God alone saves. And I think it is wise for us to acknowledge that it is extremely delusional,

downright foolish and careless to presume that the last second come to Jesus

conversion that the thief on the cross was granted would be granted to anyone else.

Like, do not play that game with your soul. Do not play that game with your soul.

This story of two criminals and

Jesus in the middle illustrates the two options that face every person.

Every person. Every person is either like one thief who repented,

confessed Jesus as Lord,

trusting him for eternal life in paradise, or every person is like the other

thief, unrepentant, rejecting of Jesus, and will face eternal judgment.

Which means we end with this. Which thief are you?

We have all robbed from God. That makes us a thief.

It's worth our heavy consideration.

Let's pray.

Father, I thank you for your word.

If I just ponder back to thinking of all that Jesus went through,

to demonstrate his love for us,

To demonstrate what a great sacrifice he endured.

That we can have eternal life.

Oh, Father, I thank you for Jesus.

Or sometimes we kind of question like things that happen in our life,

when they happen, how they happen.

And I can't get past, Father. Like you talk about great timing for this thief.

You get crucified at any other time, thief, and you probably don't get this.

Like your grace to him, mercy.

Father, I pray that we would live expecting lives of your timeliness and trusting

you in all of these things in the good times,

in the hard times and at all these

times that we could be so founded and grounded on Jesus and the gospel,

that it brings you great glory,

help us help us for Jesus to be our rock and our foundation.

Father, I pray that you would continue to forgive.

Forgive people who have sinned against you. Forgive people,

not interested in loving and serving Jesus.

You are our greatest hope I thank you,

we love you in Jesus name we pray amen,

let me end with Romans 5 8 says this for us but God but God proves his own love

for us and that while we were sinners,

Christ died for us. That's good news.