dead man walking

well first i have to apologise for not blogging daily (sarah ahhhm) but this is all still new to me .... last night i spoke at my last young life club in canberra and it was awesome to have one final opportunity to share with the kids. I shared the story of the crucifixion from the point of view of the theif. so i thought id share that today

i was thinking about the fate of australian Van Nguyen who but only a few short hours ago was hung by the singaporean government. despite the best efforts of the australian government and lawyers he fate was sealed... there was a certainty that this was the end.

this go me thinking about another man who faced the inevitability of the death sentence we don’t know a whole lot about this man We don’t know what he did exactly but we know he made some messed up decisions that led him to put to death in an awful way through crucifixion. He was a criminal, a guy who deserved this punishment by the laws of the day

he was led out to this place outside of the city and stripped naked 3 nails were driven into his body and he was raised up in front of a screaming crowd. I can imagine he would have been thinking “If Only I hadn’t done …. If only I had kept on the straight and narrow”

he looked across to the other two people crucified next to him he recognized one as another criminal he had been locked up with just as deserving of this punishment… then his eyes caught the eyes of the other man, eyes he had seen before, his mind flashed back to when he had seen this man before… It was Jesus… the Messiah… so many thoughts came rushing through his head… what has he done wrong? How did he get in this position?

then the other criminal yelled at this man Jesus saying “Aren’t you the King? Why don’t you save yourself… and us while your at it!”

the man was tempted to agree with the other criminal but he thought it over and said “This man has done nothing wrong! And WE deserve to be here after what we have done” then he turned to Jesus and said “remember me when you come into your kingdom”

now Jesus said the words that his heart longed to hear, he said “Today you will be with me in paradise!” (See Luke 23:32-43 )

now this man is one of the few people that we know directly is in Heaven because Jesus promised him directly… and what did he do to deserve heaven? He didn’t go to church.. he didn’t pray 10 times a day.. he wasn’t born into nice middle class white family.

no he simply admitted that he had stuffed things up and put his trust in Jesus!

as christians we tend to lay the extra bits on thick and fast after this point, saying stuff like...

to be a real christian we must go to the right type of church... or read the right translation of the Bible... or make sure we dont let women preach (unless its sunday school or youth) <-- ok i am being naughty now... but the simple fact is that Jesus accepted this man on less than what we tend to push on those we find coming to faith.... i await the onslaught of comments ;)