The Criminals - Death by Crucifixation

If I'm going to be honest, my driving habits probably aren't the best.  I love driving with the windows down, blasting my music, and singing along to my favorite songs.  I wrongly view driving as a great chance to catch-up on phone calls or text messages (which I'm convicted I should probably change in the immediate future).  And I have a tendency to rebel against the 25mph speed limits that make driving through Oxford painfully slow. Despite my lack of attentiveness, my roommate lovingly commented that she feels safe with me driving - unlike her feelings towards most of her other friends when they are behind the wheel.  Ironically, no less than 15 minutes after her comment, a cop handed me a hefty speeding ticket in my favorite - 25 mph speed limit. 

I must mention that I have witnessed several friends receive much more costly speedy tickets in the past few months - and they handled the situations with amazing grace and humility.  As they truthfully said, they were guilty of speeding and therefore they justly deserved the given ticket.  As I recalled their grace and poise while being handed my own speeding ticket I greatly struggled against resentment and self-righteousness.  Why should I pay a speeding ticket when hundreds of college students are drinking under-age AND driving, smoking illegal drugs, abusing prescriptions... doing things way worse than speeding in a 25!  I am so innocent compared to their destructive and idiotic life decisions!

Yet, I did breach the law that leaders have set in place for the good of America.  I broke the law.  Regardless of my view of the moral importance of the speed limit I was guilty and I justly deserve the ticket that I received.  I had no right to be angry at the police officer - all he did was catch me in my sin and deliver the predetermined fine.  Not only did I deserve that ticket, but I deserve hundreds more that I have never received.  How many tickets would you receive if a cop watched your every "stop" and speed?  I have actually received way more grace than justice as a driver!

In a similar way we all stand guilty before a holy and righteous God.  God correctly sees every man and woman as a criminal in both nature, since we are born in Adam, and in action since we actively seek and choose sin.  When God sent his Son he did it knowing that we are utterly depraved and guilty of sin.  As we read about Jesus' crucifixion in Luke 23, we must see ourselves within the criminals being crucified on either side of Jesus.

32 Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be put to death with him. 33 And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left... 39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” 40 But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41 And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” 42 And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” 43 And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Luke 23:32-33, 39-43

We are those criminals.  There is no choice in the matter of our guilt - we are guilty before God. 

However, there is a difference, ONE great difference.  Which criminal will we be?  We are either the first who railed against Jesus, mocking and denying him, or the one who feared God, seeing Jesus as holy and blameless, Lord and Savior, and trusting in Him alone for eternal life.

The first criminal ridiculed the name of Jesus saying "Are you not the Christ?  Save yourself and us!" (39).  He had no faith in Jesus as the Son of God, no shred of belief that Jesus could be his savior.

However, the second criminal, equally foul in deed and guilty in sin saw Jesus differently.  “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong” (40-41).  This man identified the weight of his own condemnation in light of Jesus' innocence.  By faith, he identified Jesus as God and cried out to Him as savior, begging “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom" (42).  And Jesus' response is the best news in the history of the world!

That's why what we believe about Jesus is the most significant decision we will ever make.  Which criminal will you be?