The Bible is full of good news.
The Church is all about telling the good news.
The Christian life is living out the good news.
But it sometimes takes some bad news to really understand what that good news is. So I want you to think about something. Put yourself in the shoes of a criminal condemned to die. What would you do? How would you react at that moment of death?
I need to tell you one more thing. This is no ordinary death. This is the worst penalty ever leveled on human beings in history. This death penalty is a crucifixion. You are tied to a beam of wood. Spikes are driven through your wrists, your ankles. You hang and slowly suffocate until you die.
This is what Jesus went through. But he wasn’t alone. Two other men hung on either side of him. Two thieves, the most common translations tell us. They were more than common thieves, though. They were rebels, Roman dissenters, instigators.
They were terrorists.
They deserved to die. That would be justice.
And when one of them curses Jesus, the other says just that.
Luke 23:40-41
40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”
The thief uses that one word – Justice. It is for justice that he and the other thief are there on a cross that day. It is what they deserve. But Jesus did not deserve it.
Was it injustice? Or was it something else?
We want justice, especially for ourselves. We want things to be fair and square. When it comes to serving a slice of cake or a scoop of ice cream to my kids, justice reigns supreme! Each one will go to great lengths, measuring and weighing, to make sure that the other doesn’t get more than them. They want the scoop or the slice to be equal.
I guess you could call that just dessert?
But the truth is, we don’t really want our just desserts. We don’t want what’s coming to us. We don’t really want what we deserve. We want what we don’t deserve.
We all sit in the place of judgment and justice with those two thieves. We have all done something for which we deserve punishment. Maybe not as severe as a death penalty, sure. But it’s definitely not what we want.
We want mercy when it comes to us. Even when we demand punishment for others.
We deserve punishment. We get mercy.
And that’s the good news. Great news! It takes getting to the bottom of the bad news to really understand the good news. Without getting that in our head, that we don’t get what we deserve – and we deserve the worst – we can’t truly understand mercy.
Mercy is the result of God’s love for us. And it is the cause of our great joy. When we get that full picture of God’s mercy, we must respond with praise, with worship, with gratitude and thankfulness. There is no other response.
So, when you’re living out life in the good times, don’t forget that it’s only because you are one of the many recipients of God’s mercy. The first? Well, on the day of Jesus’ crucifixion, the first recipient of his mercy was a thief. Someone who didn’t deserve life. Someone who deserved death. But someone who got paradise with Jesus.
Do you get what you deserve? If not, it’s part of God’s good news for all of us.
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