Jesus' first recorded words on the cross are not about his own suffering. 34"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do." Some early manuscripts omit the sentence, but it fits the pattern of the Gospel. Executioners doing the ordinary business of a crucifixion, casting lots for his garments while he hangs above them, receive a prayer for forgiveness before anything else is said: mercy offered before it is asked for, to people who have not stopped to consider that they might need it.
The mockery comes from every direction. The rulers scoff, 35"He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!" The title Chosen One recalls the voice from the cloud on the mountain (Luke 9:35), and the rulers use it as a taunt. They speak the truth of the gospel while meaning an insult. He saved others, and he refuses to save himself. The soldiers offer sour wine and repeat the taunt: 37"If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" Even the inscription, 38"This is the King of the Jews," meant as a warning to anyone else with ideas, states the truest thing anyone says all day.
Then the mockery narrows to the two men crucified beside him. One rails: 39"Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" The other rebukes him: 40"Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation?" and says 41"this man has done nothing wrong." The sentence of condemnation he names is one that Jesus shares, though Jesus has done nothing wrong. Dying beside Jesus, having done nothing to earn mercy, this man does what none of the religious leaders below the cross managed all day. He tells the truth about himself and about Jesus.
His request is 42"Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." It is small and without pretense, with no claim to deserve anything and no bargaining for release from the cross, only a plea to be remembered. Jesus' answer exceeds the request by an almost unbearable margin: today. Not someday at a distant coronation. Today, with me, in paradise, a word that meant an enclosed garden and that the Greek Old Testament used for the garden of Eden (Genesis 2:8). The garden humanity was driven out of at the beginning is the place this dying man is welcomed into before the day is over.
The cross, meant as a throne of shame, becomes the place where a king receives a subject into his kingdom. He will die within hours, having done nothing to earn heaven by any ordinary accounting, converted in the last moments of a life he admitted was justly condemned. And Jesus, on his own cross, still has room to save him, first, before anyone else that day.
Pray the thief's prayer today in his own words: Jesus, remember me. Then rest in the answer, which is today.
Prayer
Father, thank you for a Son who prayed for his executioners before he prayed for anything else, and who welcomed a dying criminal into paradise with nothing to offer but an honest confession. Wherever we have mocked what we should have worshiped, or stood by watching what we should have confessed, forgive us. And when our own end comes, whatever we have to bring, let us bring what the thief brought: Jesus, remember me. In Jesus' name, amen.