“And one of the malefactors which were hanging railed on Him,
saying, If thou be Christ, save thyself and us. But the other rebuked him,
saying, Dost thou not fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation? And
we indeed justly; for we receive the due reward of our deeds: but this man hath
done nothing amiss. And he said unto Jesus, Lord, remember me when Thou contest
into Thy kingdom. And Jesus said unto him, Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt
thou be with Me in paradise”. (Luke 23:39-13)
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| "The Crucifixion". Theophanes the Cretan. 16th century. |
This Is How the holy Evangelist Luke
relates the edifying and moving incident concerning the conversion and the
Lord's pardoning of the thief who hung on the cross next to Him on Golgotha.
How did the thief deserve such mercy? What prompted such a quick
and definitive response from the Lord? All the righteous figures of the Old
Testament, including Saint John the Baptist, were still shut up in Hades. The Lord Himself
was preparing to descend into Hades, not, of course, to suffer there, but to
bring out the prisoners.
The Lord had not yet promised anyone to lead them into the Kingdom
of Heaven; even the Apostles were promised to be taken into His mansions only after
He had prepared them.
How is it that a thief was granted such mercy before anyone else?
Why were the gates of Heaven opened so quickly for him? Let us examine the soul
of the thief and the attendant circumstances.
His whole life had been one of theft and crime. But evidently his
conscience had not died, and in the depths of his heart something good
remained. Tradition even holds that he was that very thief who, during Christ's
flight into Egypt, took pity on the beautiful Baby and forbade his accomplices
to kill Him, when they attacked the holy family. Did he perhaps recall the face
of that Child when he looked upon the face of the One hanging next to him on
the Cross?.
Whether or not this actually occurred, when the thief looked upon
Christ his conscience was awakened. There he was hanging next to the Righteous
One, next to Him Who was comely in beauty more than the sons of men (Ps.
44:2), Whose form at that time was ignoble, and inferior to that of the
children of men.. ., having neither form nor comeliness (Is.
53:2-3).
Gazing upon Him, the thief awoke as it were from a deep sleep. He
saw clearly the difference between Him and himself. That One was without doubt
a Righteous One, Who forgave even His tormentors and prayed for them to God,
Whom He called His Father; while he was the killer of many victims, one who had
shed the blood of people who had done him no harm.
Gazing upon the One hanging on the Cross, he saw as in a mirror
his moral downfall. All the good concealed within him was awakened and surfaced.
He came to a realization of his sins, he understood that it was his own fault
that had brought him to this bitter end; he had no one to blame. Like the thief
crucified on Christ's left, he too had been gripped by hatred for the
executioners, but this gave way to a feeling of humility and compunction. He
felt fear at God's coming judgment.
Sin became loathsome, dreadful. In his soul he was no longer a
thief. There awakened in him feelings of love for mankind, merciful kindness.
With his fear over the fate of his soul there was united a revulsion to the
outrage being heaped upon the innocent Sufferer.
He had undoubtedly heard about the great Teacher and Wonder worker from Nazareth. What had occurred in Judea and in Galilee was the subject of
many conversations and debates throughout the country. Previously, he had paid
scant attention to any of this. Now, finding himself together with Him and in
the same situation, he began to understand His moral greatness.
Christ's lack of malice, His all-embracing forgiveness. His prayer
astonished the thief. He understood in his heart that beside him was no
ordinary man. To turn to God as to One's own father, in the hour of death, was
possible only for Someone who truly knew Himself to be the Son of God. Not to
waver in One's teaching about love and unconditional forgiveness, to bear the
humiliation of men's slander and malice on the part of those to whom one has
done good, was possible only for One who had the most intimate relationship
with the source of Love, or Who was that Love.
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| "Dismas", the thief of the right side of Christ. (Holy Trinity Church, Monastery of Saint John the Baptist. Lebanon) |
The thief recalled all the remarkable things he had heard about
the One now crucified with him, and a warm feeling of faith was kindled in his
heart. Yes, He was without doubt the Son of God, incarnate on earth while
existing in uninterrupted communion with His Father; the Son of God, Whom the
earth did not receive and Who was returning to Heaven; the Son of God, Who was
able and powerful to forgive men their sins! That gave hope that the thief
would escape condemnation at the Dread Judgment. If Jesus prayed to His Father
for His hangmen, He would not refuse to do the same for the one crucified with
Him. The thief need only turn to Him, Who now shared with him the same bitter
suffering, and He would receive him into His blessedness.
True, his turning to Christ with words of love and sympathy would
be met with jeers on the part of the angry crowd. To acknowledge Him as a holy
man and the Son of God would mean drawing upon himself the attention and anger
of the Hebrew elders. Although they could not cause him greater physical agony
than he already endured, it would be painful to be surrounded by malice; how
much more grievous his sufferings would be when they began to revile him
likewise.
But what did he care now about the anger of earthly authorities,
about men's taunts. As painful as it was to be abandoned by men at the
threshold of death, it would be still more painful to be abandoned by God. He
was nearing God's judgment, and it was God alone he need fear! In the final
moments of life, he had to do whatever was still in his power to gain God's
good will.
Perhaps he could say something to ease His suffering even just a
little, perhaps even just one of the blasphemers would be ashamed and stop
slandering Him. Christ had promised to give a reward for a cup of water offered
in His name; surely He would not leave him without recompense. Let those
reviling Christ revile him also! This would tighten his bond with Christ! He
was going to share Christ's lot here; Christ would surely remember him when He came
into His glory!
There, amidst the clamor of slander, blasphemy and derision, he
began exhorting his companion hanging to the left of Christ to stop slandering
Him. Dost not thou fear God, seeing thou art in the same condemnation?
And we indeed justly: for we receive the due reward of our deeds:
but this man hath done nothing amiss. And then from his lips came a humble
voice: Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom (Luke
23:40-42).
This was the cry of a former thief — now Christ's new disciple —
who came to believe in Christ at a time when His other disciples had abandoned
Him.
"A thief blessed Him, while I denied Him" (Sedalion,
Tone 5), Saint Peter lamented afterwards. At that time all the other Apostles
likewise doubted the Lord. Even Saint John the Theologian, who had followed
inseparably after his Teacher and was standing at the Cross on Golgotha,
although he continued to be faithful to his beloved Jesus, even he did not then
have complete faith in the Divinity of his Teacher. It was only after the
Resurrection, after entering the empty tomb where lay the napkin and grave
clothes which had wrapped Christ's dead Body, only then did he "see and
believe" that Christ had truly risen and was indeed the Son of God.
The Apostles wavered in their faith in Jesus as the Messiah,
because they anticipated and desired to see in Him an earthly king, in whose
kingdom they could sit at the right and the left hand of the Lord.
The thief understood that the Kingdom of Jesus of Nazareth,
despised and given over to a shameful death, was not of this world. And it was
precisely this Kingdom that the thief now sought: the gates of earthly life
were closing after him; opening before him was eternity. He had settled his
accounts with life on earth, and now he thought of life eternal. And here, at
the threshold of eternity, he began to understand the vanity of earthly glory
and earthly kingdoms. He recognized that greatness consists in righteousness,
and in the righteous, blamelessly tortured Jesus he saw the King of
Righteousness. The thief did not ask Him for glory in an earthly kingdom but
for the salvation of his soul.
The faith of the thief, born of his esteem for Christ's moral
greatness, proved stronger than the faith of the Apostles, who, although
captivated by the loftiness of Christ's teaching, based their faith to a still
greater extent on the signs and wonders He wrought.
Now there was no miraculous deliverance of Christ from His enemies
— and the Apostles' faith was shaken.
But the patience He exhibited, His absolute forgiveness, and the
faith that His Heavenly Father heard Him so clearly, indicated Jesus'
righteousness, His moral superiority, that one seeking spiritual and moral
rebirth could not be shaken.
And this is precisely what the thief, aware of the depth of his
fall, craved. He did not ask to sit at the right or the left hand of Christ in
His Kingdom, but, conscious of his unworthiness, he asked in humility simply
that he be remembered in His Kingdom, that he be given even the lowest place.
Before everyone he openly confessed the Crucified Christ as Lord,
and asked of Him the mercy of forgiveness.
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| "Ecce Homo". |
His humble faith in Christ made him a confessor. By his own
volition he was even a martyr, for he did not fear to recognize as his Lord the
rejected "King of the Jews" — on Whom was concentrated the hatred of
the multitude who had gathered in Jerusalem from all corners of the world for
the Passover, and who, together with their elders and priests, were blaspheming
Christ. The thief would not have feared even to suffer for Him.
Thus, the earnest repentance of the thief gave birth to humility,
and together with this turned out to be a solid foundation for strength of
faith which at that time not even Christ's closest disciples possessed. The
converted thief performed a spiritual feat which not one of them was then
capable of doing.
Whoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess also
before My Father which is in heaven (Matt. 10:32).
The thief confessed Christ; he confessed Him before a whole
multitude who was railing at Him; he confessed Him then when no one else dared,
and when even those few disciples and women who remained faithful to Him
manifested their love for Him only with their bitter tears.
The thief did what once the three youths in Babylon did, refusing
to bow down before the golden idol which Nebuchadnezzar had set up on the plain
of Dura and before which "all nations, tribes and tongues" bowed down
(Dan. 3:7).
The thief came to belief in the suffering Lord; confessing Him as
"the hidden God," he came to know Him before anyone else, and the
power of His resurrection, and participation in His sufferings, being
made conformable unto His death (Phil. 3:10); he understood before
anyone else what constitutes the Kingdom not of this world; he came
to know what is truth (John 18:36-38).
He was the first to comprehend the nature of Christ's Kingdom, and
therefore he was the first to enter it.
He was the first to see Jesus Christ and Him
crucified (I Cor. 2:2), the first to preach Christ crucified, to
the Jews a stumbling block, to the Greeks foolishness, But unto them which are
called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God (I
Cor. 1:23-24).
For this reason he was also first to personally experience the
power and wisdom of God, the power of Christ's co-suffering and regenerating
love; he was first to hear "the sound of the power of the Cross, for
through it Paradise was opened." (Fourth Ode, Ascension Canon)
His thorough repentance of his sins and transgressions, his profound
humility, his firm faith in the Crucified Lord Jesus Christ Who gave Himself
over to suffering, and his confession, made at a time when the whole world was
against Christ — these are the strands which wove the crown that adorned the
head of the former thief, this is the substance of which the key was forged
that opened to him the gates of Paradise!
Many people sin, trusting to repent just before death; they point
to the example of the wise thief. But is anyone capable of what he did?
"The Lord pardoned the thief at the final hour so that no one would
despair. But it was a single instance, that no one should have immoderate hope
in His mercy" (Blessed Augustine).
"Such was his end! What ours will be we do not know — neither
do we know by what death we will die: whether it will come suddenly or with
some sort of forewarning" (Saint Theodore Studite, "Lesson on
the occasion of a monk's sudden death").
Will we then be capable of a moral transformation and rise up
spiritually like Christ's "fellow traveler/' "who let out a small
voice and gained great faith? Will a sudden death not carry us away, deceiving
our hope of repentance at the last minute?" (Saint Cyril of
Alexandria, "On the Dread Judgment," printed in The Great
Horologion).
For this reason, "sinner, do not postpone repentance, that
your sins not accompany you into the other life and weigh you down with an
intolerable burden" (Blessed Augustine, in The
Sunflower of Saint John of Tobolsk, Book 4, chap. 5).
May the example of the wise thief prompt us not to postpone
repentance but to crucify ourselves with Christ (Gal. 2:19) and more earnestly
repent, that we too might experience upon ourselves the mercy of co-suffering. (Prayer
of Saint Symeon the New Theologian) They that are Christ's have crucified
the flesh with its affections and lusts (Gal. 5:24). Let us be zealous
for our speedy and complete inner amendment, wholly giving ourselves over to
the will of God and asking of Christ mercy and grace.
"Do Thou, Who alone lovest mankind, grant us the repentance
of the thief as we serve Thee with faith, O Christ our God, and cry to Thee:
Remember us also in Thy kingdom" (verse on the Beatitudes, Tone 4).
"O Lord, this very day hast Thou vouchsafed the Good Thief
Paradise. By the Wood of the Cross do Thou enlighten me also and save me" (Exapostilarion, Matins of Holy Friday).
Reference:
http://www.holytrinitymission.org/books/english/sermons_john_maximovich.htm#_Toc100019514