Day 2—Two Crucified with Christ: Hardened and Desperate (Luke 23:32-43)
By Mark A. Taylor
Some prayers are peaceful and quiet. Thank you, Lord, for this food.
Some prayers are passionate and persistent. Oh, Lord, help me find a job.
All of us have prayed prayers like those. But at least once in almost every believer’s life, prayer moves from devotion to desperation. Oh, Lord, save my child . . . forgive me . . . help!
The two robbers crucified with Christ were at the kind of crossroad that produces desperation. But in fact, they weren’t at a crossroad at all—they were at the end of the road. No more breaking the law, enjoying ill-gotten gains, planning the next steal. They’d been caught and convicted, and all that remained was the horrible punishment. It’s intriguing to see the opposite ways they reacted to their hopelessness.
The first man was vile and coarse. He likely had been that way all along. His question to Jesus, according to Luke, was an insult: “OK, if you’re the God you say you are, do something about this pain and these crosses! Save yourself—and us!”
We can guess the man was not thinking about eternity. He wasn’t repenting of his life on the wrong side of the law. He had no intent to become an upstanding citizen if Jesus would somehow help him escape Golgotha. He viewed Jesus as little more than a miracle maker who could get him out of his jam.
The other thief thought about himself, too, of course. But he knew Jesus was different. “This man has done nothing wrong,” he said. He didn’t ask for a miracle. But sensing that his death would not be the end, he asked Jesus simply to remember him.
Any one of us might react to God as one of these two did.
We might plead with God to save us from our own bad choices, but there’s no salvation in that. Only when a person surrenders to the fact of his own sinfulness is he ready to approach the Savior. When he looks at his own hopeless situation and simply acknowledges that Jesus is the only solution, he finds the way out only Jesus can provide.
The hardest part for the second criminal was not enduring his execution but admitting his own guilt. “We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve,” he said. He sought not a temporary solution or a quick fix, but simply the peace that can come from confessing the truth, no matter how ugly, before the Lord.
The thieves remind us of how all humankind responds to God. Some are so hardened by their self-will that they can’t take their eyes off themselves long enough to see his saving hand. Others lift their gaze from their past of self-justification and find in Jesus the peace that all life without him is lacking.
One beautiful thought this story makes clear: it’s never too late to choose Jesus. Sometimes desperation can lead to something very good, indeed.
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RESPOND:
1. What is the greatest difficulty you’re facing right now? Write it down, and then ask yourself, “How have my own bad choices gotten me here?” Spend some time in today’s prayers confessing your sins to God.
2. Ask yourself how you view Jesus—as the God who can make your life comfortable? Or as the Lord who will give you peace if you’ll simply surrender to him? What’s one step you can make away from the first view and toward the latter?
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Another Easter meditation will be posted Wednesday morning.
Author: Mark A. Taylor
Mark A. Taylor, who served as Christian Standard editor from 2003 to 2017, retired in June 2017 after almost 41 years with Standard Publishing (Christian Standard Media).
