The Seven Last Words from the Cross

by Fleming Rutledge

In Jesus’ time, crucifixion was not against the law. It was carried out by the law. It was an exceptionally gruesome method of torturing a person to death, carried out by the government not in secret dungeons but in public.

Throughout his life, Jesus aligned himself with the “bad elements.” In his death, it was the same: he was crucified between two “malefactors,” two wrongdoers. You have probably heard the familiar saying that Jesus was crucified not on the altar between two candles but on Golgotha between two thieves. That’s a good saying, isn’t it? But it doesn’t go quite far enough, because they weren’t just thieves. According to Mark and Matthew, they were worse than mere thieves; they were bandits, armed robbers, men of violence, prepared to kill as well as steal. This indeed is an “element” wildly unsuited to be in proximity to the divine. Good Friday summons us to think deeply about the profoundly strange, incongruous — indeed, unacceptable — nature of a crucified God nailed up between two bandits for the scorn of the passersby. Would you in a million years ever have dreamed of having such an objectionable fact at the heart of your faith? No such image of God has ever been imagined in all the history of religion. No one has ever matched this story for sheer perversity — the divine redeemer “defiled and put to scorn,” in the words of our next hymn, obscenely displayed, reviled, mocked, spat upon, beaten nearly to death, naked, plagued by insects, covered with dirt and sweat and blood and excrement. This deeply troubling picture calls for interpretation. It calls for explanation. Why has the Son of God come to this end?

“Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” That is what the second thief said. In the Old Testament, when God “remembers,” it has a distinct meaning. It does not mean “to think about” or “to recall to mind.” That would not mean very much. When God “remembers,” he does not just think about us. He acts for us, with power to save. Somehow the crucified criminal on Jesus’ right was enabled to see something that day that no one else saw. He saw Jesus reigning as a King and determining the destinies of people even in his tormented and dying state. To see him that way, Luke is telling us, is to see him as he truly is and to understand the source of his power. Not by signs and wonders, not by magic and dazzlement, not by “shock and awe,” but only by an ultimate act of God’s own self-sacrifice does Christ rule. His power is made known only through his death.

Jesus, in his death, takes the part of all those who suffer from the curses of others.