Three Crosses at Calvary
Luke 23:32-43
The Gospel of Luke gives an eye-witness account of the scene at the cross.
(23:32,33). "Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with Jesus to be executed. When they came to the place called The Skull, there they crucified him, along with the criminals - one on his right, the other on his left."
Calvary, the place of the three crosses.
To us, in the Christian era, nearly 2,000 years removed from that awful day, one cross stands out.
In most pictures the center cross is usually taller than the other two… like these.
But… there wasn’t just one but three crosses on that ugly skyline.
It was the Roman form of execution.
It was meant to be a public spectacle, to warn others of falling foul of the law. It was a horrible death, with the agonized bodies of the victims sagging on pierced hands and feet, the raging thirst that tortured them in the dust and heat, under the gaze of passers by.
Three men, three crosses, the same death for all three, but how different they were.
We might wonder what led the rulers to crucify Jesus with the thieves.
Was it just accidental, as some might say? Were there three men condemned at the same time, and the captain of the garrison thought? "Let’s get it out of the way; do all three of them together."
Or was crucifying Jesus with common criminals a final act of cruelty thought out by his enemies, calculated to heighten the shame and to humiliate Jesus further in front of the crowd. One can imagine them enjoying a sneer at the expense of Jesus - "Crucify him with thieves; yes, I like it!"
Well, we don’t know how it came about, but it’s clear that there were three crosses on the hill of Calvary.
The crosses were the same, and yet how vast a difference in those three crosses.
One was a cross of Rebellion. One was a cross of Repentance. The other was a cross of Redemption.
Let’s look at each of them in turn.
1. The Cross of Rebellion
This is the cross of the man who mocked Jesus in his hour of humiliation and shame.
The dying thief was a shameless criminal, coarsened and hardened in sin.
Even the solemnity of death couldn’t restrain the blasphemies from his lips.
He could see Jesus, and hear him pray for his murderers. You might expect that at the time of death, a man might think about spiritual things and getting his soul ready to meet his maker.
Not this man… this man had been a prisoner of hate and evil for so long, he could not change now.
You might think just human decency would cause this man to be quiet when the mother of this man was lying at his feet in tears. You would think any decent human being would have some respect.
You would be wrong. This man still had no remorse and continued to hurl insults at Jesus. "Aren’t you the Christ? Save yourself and us!" (39).
He was bitter, spurning the good even on the day of his dying, and cursing his way to hell in the most solemn hour of all history.
His was a cross of Rebellion-- because his was a heart of rebellion.
He had the chance even then of receiving forgiveness, but he threw it away.
I have stood by the bedside of dying octogenarians and tried to talk to them about their soul and getting right before they died. And I was shocked to hear them reject Christ at that time. But we should not be surprised by them or by the thief… they have lived a life without God, rejecting God and rejecting all things spiritual. They cannot just make a complete change, like turning on a light switch.
They have determined their course… and their end… and now they are unable to change.
High up in the Canadian Rockies there is a sign that says, "The Great Divide". It’s the source of two great river systems, one flowing west into the Pacific Ocean, and the other into the Atlantic. Two raindrops can fall side by side, but will flow in opposite directions, never to meet again.
That thief came to the great divide that day… there were two decisions he could make… accept Jesus and confess his sins… or reject Jesus and die in his sins… one choice led to eternal life… the other to eternal hell.
The thief made his last choice in life and its results would be forever. His was a cross of Rebellion.
But then there was a second cross - it was:
2. The Cross of Repentance
This is the cross of the penitent thief.
We know no more about him than the other thief. Both were being punished for their crimes. So far as we know both were guilty and both were deserving of death.
In hind sight we want to think maybe this criminal was not as vile as the other… that surely his crime was not as grievous as that of the other criminal. We want to believe maybe his sin was some small crime. Perhaps he stole food because his family was starving.
But we don’t know that. All we know is that he, like the other criminal, was guilty of some crime.
Yet, there was something very different about the second criminal for he was able to recognize that Jesus was no common criminal like themselves.
What was it? I believe life had not hardened this thief as it had the other. I believe this thief still had a flickering light of humanity and spiritual sensitivity.
I don’t believe he was less guilty… just less hardened, less bitter and resentful against the world… and God.
Perhaps he had a spiritual upbringing and seeing Jesus’ mother made him think of his own mother and caused him to become repentant.
Or perhaps he was older and more mature so he could understand his own guilt. Perhaps he was just less self-centered.
Whatever the case… this second thief was responded differently.
Maybe it was something about the way that Jesus conducted himself which convicted the thief of his own vileness when contrasted with the righteousness of Jesus, visible to all who had eyes to see it.
Maybe it was that instead of curses from the lips of Jesus as the soldiers hammered in the nails, he heard a prayer of forgiveness for his torturers.
It seems likely that this man had known of the life of Jesus, for when the other thief was shouting abuse at Jesus, this fellow tried to restrain him and told him that although they were receiving the just reward of their misdeeds, Jesus had done nothing amiss.
The second thief was guilty but he feared God and that was the beginning of his repentance.
No-one is beyond hope of redemption if they still have some fear of God.
As he thought about the fundamental issues of life and death, of right and wrong, faith rose in his soul and he blurted out his appeal, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." (42).
It was a plea which didn’t fall on deaf ears. The response was immediate. "I tell you the truth," said Jesus, "today you will be with me in paradise." (43).
What was Jesus mean?
Paradise was the abode of the souls of the saints, like Moses and Job, before Jesus paid their price and liberated them taking them to heaven for eternity.
Jesus had not yet died and descended to hell to pay for the sins of the believers THUS they could not go to heaven.
Jesus died, descended to hell, set the captives free and took them back to heaven.
When he told the thief, "You will be with me in paradise” he meant the thief would descend with Him and would be with him as he led the captives out.
The cross of Repentance teaches that the way of salvation is wondrously simple. The devil has blinded the eyes of men and women to thinking that it is hard to be saved, difficult to come to Christ and to become a Christian. But this clearly isn’t true. The man was saved simply by asking the Lord to save him.
In the words of his request, there is surely an attitude of repentance as he threw himself on the mercy of Jesus. He believed the Lord could and would save him and he committed himself to the Lord and trusted him to save him (Romans 10:13). That’s all that is necessary to salvation - repentance and faith.
The cross of Repentance reminds us that the worst sinner may be saved. The extent of his sin didn’t alter his chance of being saved one little bit.
Let no-one despair in thinking that they are too bad to be saved, for as the hymn writer put it so well, "the vilest offender who truly believes, that moment from Jesus a pardon receives."
Another important lesson to learn from the personal encounter of the dying thief is that salvation doesn’t depend on religious ceremonies, good deeds or any contribution from man.
This man had no chance to do any good deeds, or attend any services.
This is why Southern Baptists do not believe baptism is necessary for salvation. This man was clearly not baptized in water… but he was definitely saved.
3. The Cross of Redemption
"This man has done nothing wrong."
At his trial by the Jews, no grounds had been established on which he could justly be condemned… so false witnesses were bribed to lie.
Pilate, in his examination, concluded that Jesus had done nothing worthy of punishment.
The crowning testimony to his innocence comes from the throne of God at both the beginning and end of his ministry - his baptism and transfiguration -when God confirmed that Jesus was his beloved son in whom he was well pleased.
Why then did Jesus die? Was it all a ghastly miscarriage of justice?
From the human point of view there’s no greater blot on human history than the story of Calvary.
It is history’s darkest atrocity, but it also the climax of God’s plan of redemption.
"God was in Christ reconciling the world unto himself ... him who knew no sin God made to be sin, on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in him" (1 Cor 5:18-21).
This tells us beyond doubt that God took the initiative in our redemption. In a way which is incapable of being understood God caused Christ to be identified with human sin; our sin, my sin, in order that we might become identified with righteousness, his righteousness.
The death of Christ was quite different from the two other victims. They died without any choice in the matter; their lives were taken away.
But it was quite different with Jesus. In advance of the crucifixion he had told his disciples, "I lay down my life that I may take it again ... I lay it down of my own accord" (John 10:17,18).
The death of Jesus was inevitable only because he willed it so.
It was as our substitute that he suffered and died.
The basis for our redemption is the shedding of his blood.
The sacrifices of the Old Testament pointed towards this once and for all effective sacrifice.
Evil did its worst on Calvary. Wicked hands took and crucified the Lord of life, but where man’s rebellion against God reached its limit, the grace of God shines through in all of its splendor.
In the year 1815 there was the Battle of Waterloo and all England was waiting for the result. It was arranged that as soon as the news reached the country it should be rushed to Winchester and then signaled to other towns by semaphore from the cathedral spire. The great moment arrived and the words were spelt out letter by letter "Wellington defeated..." Then suddenly the spire was shrouded by fog, and the country was filled with gloom, thinking that was the end of the message. After a while the fog lifted and the message was completed "Wellington defeated the enemy". Those last words made all the difference in the world.
At Calvary the devil tried to make out that the message was "Christ defeated" - he died. That would have been the case if Good Friday was the end of the story, but the resurrection that followed on Easter Day proves that the message of the cross of Redemption is that Christ defeated the enemy.
There were many people who were instrumental in crucifying our Lord.
There were the teachers who hated him,
the traitor who sold him,
the priests who bought him,
even the disciples who deserted him.
But the story remains academic unless we each admit, "I was there, too".
In a very real sense we were all at Calvary, because it was my sins and your sins which Jesus took to the cross.
We have a choice between the cross of Rebellion and the cross of Repentance.
