“We are punished justly, because we’re getting back what we deserve for the things we did, but this man has done nothing wrong.” (v. 41)

The criminal gets it right.

He’s there, beside Jesus, on a cross of his own.

But he gets it.

One cross is just, right, deserved. The criminal’s cross follows some court’s conviction. The man sentenced to death there was sentenced deservedly.

The other cross?

An injustice. Undeserved. A cruel irony in the eyes of man. A cosmic atonement in the eyes of heaven.

The criminal looks to Jesus’s cross and gets it, gets the Gospel.

May we join him, then, and may we revel and wonder and proclaim the inimitable gift of Christ crucified. For we should hang with the deserving, yet Jesus—undeserving—took our place.

— Tyler