He Was Lost and Has Been Found

Jesus was a masterful teacher. He knew how to bring people to understand the most profound truths by using simple, every day concrete examples: “Look at how yeast makes dough rise… Look at that wonderful old lady who just deposited a small coin in the collection box… Look at that farmer throwing seeds by the handful… Look at the lilies in the field and how they grow… Look at how a shepherd goes out looking for that one lost sheep…” He still does that today. As I read the scriptures, he will draw my attention to a detail in a passage, to a small event that occurred as he travelled from town to town, to a twist in one of his parables… For the last several months, I have felt him inviting me to look closely at the “good” thief crucified next to him.  

“Good” is an epithet that may not be quite suitable for this condemned criminal. He admits deserving the punishment he is getting. We don’t know the details of his crimes, but they must have been serious. He was a gangster, and we can easily imagine him on that dangerous stretch of road leading from Jericho to Jerusalem attacking travellers – like the one rescued by the “Good” Samaritan in the parable – and leaving them behind beaten and barely breathing. We also know from the Gospel of Matthew (27, 44) that both thieves crucified with Jesus, initially at least, insulted, and mocked Jesus.

I cannot but help wonder what could have happened to this hard-hearted man to bring him to eventually turn to Jesus before he died and say, “Remember me when you come into your Kingdom.” (Luke 23, 42) What follows is pure speculation, but could the “good” thief have seen something in Jesus’ eyes that he had never seen before. All his life he had been running from the law, from judgement, from condemnation and from rejection in a society that saw nothing good in him, nothing loveable, nothing of value. In the few hours he hung on a cross before his death, his gaze must have crossed that of Jesus several times and seen something else there: compassion. All his life, he had been afraid of being “found out” for what he felt he was, less than nothing, but in the eyes of Jesus he could only see the love of a father who welcomes his wayward son with open arms saying, “…he was lost and has been found.”