Between Two Criminals

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him and the criminals there, one on his right, the other on his left. Now one of the criminals hanging there reviled Jesus, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us."

The other, however, rebuking him, said in reply, "Have you no fear of God, for you are subject to the same condemnation? And indeed, we have been condemned justly, for the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes, but this man has done nothing criminal."

Here, at the supreme moment of is life and work, Jesus is situated where He has always chosen to be: among sinners (the Greek calls them “wrong-“ or “evil-doers” – even considered to be one of them. The significance of this should not be glossed over or missed.  God-made-Man is a friend of sinners – not because they are sinners but because they are His and He loves them too much to leave them that way. In the drama of the Passion, we are confronted with the fact that God does not save us from far away, nor is He simply offering a “good example” for us to follow. Instead, Jesus enters into the messiness of human weakness and suffering, takes it on Himself, and has it nailed to the Cross.

In doing this, Jesus reveals that He is “Emmanuel,” God with us, as He has been from the first moment of His conception.

My brothers and sisters, our response to this incredible love – this “Passion” that God has for us – should not be to merely observe these events. Rather, we are called to enter into them ourselves as disciples of Jesus who have been promised our own suffering and cross. Holy Week and the mysteries that we experience are an opportunity to embrace what Jesus embraced; but not only in theory.

Jesus, hanging between two criminals, invites us to be there too: with the outcast, the migrant, the elderly, the confused, the homeless, the criminal, the victims of violence – the least of all. They are all around us, and they too need that presence of Jesus whose life culminated among two “wrongdoers.” God doesn’t ask if you are right or wrong; He simply loves, suffers with, and redeems.

If we can enter in this way into the Sacred Heart of Jesus, who loved sinners always, then we too can hear His consolation: “Today, you will be with me in Paradise.”