Monday, March 23rd

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Monday, March 23

Luke 23:32-43

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals—one on his right, the other on his left. Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up his clothes by casting lots.

The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, “He saved others; let him save himself if he is God’s Messiah, the Chosen One.”

The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, “If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.”

There was a written notice above him, which read: this is the king of the Jews.

One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!”

But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

Our family moved when I was in the middle of the fourth grade. That meant leaving my friends, my teacher and my school, and starting all over in a new school in the middle of the year.

I was nervous about the whole process so I was on my best behavior. As I recall I made some friends pretty quickly and my teacher seemed very nice. So things were going just fine until one day in the lunch room. As I recall I was just sitting there eating my peanut butter sandwich, minding mind own business, when the lunch room monitor - who was another teacher in the school - ran over to our table and announced in a voice loud enough for the whole room to hear, “Mr. Coffey, would you like to share with everyone why you are talking to your neighbor? You know there is no talking in the lunchroom!”

I was dumfounded. I was embarrassed. Yes, I had been talking quietly to the kid next to me, but I had no idea there was such a rule! Then she made me stand up and walk across the room and stand against the wall. The teacher seemed gleeful that she had caught me doing something wrong. She kept saying, “I caught him! I caught the new boy!”

I couldn’t understand why she seemed happy about catching me talking. I felt ashamed and humiliated.

Later I realized that she made a habit of watching new kids until she caught them doing something wrong so she could use them to warn the rest of the students.

Luke writes:

Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with him to be executed.

Sometimes I think we have become so familiar with the story that we can miss some of the obvious details.

This is Jesus, the Son of God, the only sinless man who ever walked on the face of the earth, and he is being led to a place of execution with two criminals.

Jesus is lumped together with criminals and subjected to the humiliation of a public execution.
Historians tell us that in those days condemned men were stripped naked (or at least mostly so) and forced to carry the cross bar (called the “patibulum”) upon which they would be crucified. The Romans used crucifixion not just to execute criminals, but to humiliate and intimidate. The intent of the whole process was to so degrade and torture a human being so that those watching would be terrified to even think of defying the power of Rome.

As we begin what we call “Holy Week,” we remember that Jesus didn’t just “die on the cross for our sins.” He did die, of course, but first he allowed himself to be falsely accused as a criminal; he allowed himself to be humiliated.

For you. For me. For all of us.

Pastor Brian Coffey