Day 6 — The Starting Point: Who Jesus Is, and What He Has Done

Today’s Passage: Luke 23:32-49

It is Friday morning in Jerusalem, in the week of Passover, and Jesus has been awake all night. He was arrested after dark, questioned by the Temple leadership, sent to Pontius Pilate (the Roman governor who held the power to execute), sent on to Herod, sent back to Pilate again. Pilate said three times that he found no guilt in the man. Then he handed Him over anyway. Now a work detail is walking Jesus out of the city to kill Him.

Luke was not there. He says at the start of his book that he interviewed the people who were, and wrote it down in order. What follows reads like it. Short sentences. One thing after another. He does not tell you what to feel about any of it.

Two things before you read. Today is only watching. There is a great deal to say about why this death matters, and this series will say it, but not today. And notice who is actually in this scene: a governor, a few officials, a squad of soldiers, a watching crowd, two condemned men. Luke is describing particular people doing a particular thing in one particular week. He is not describing a nation or a religion, and neither will we. Some of the people in this chapter go home crying.

As you read, hold this: While they were killing Him, Jesus forgave them, and opened His kingdom to a dying criminal.

Luke 23:32-34 (BSB)

³² Two others, who were criminals, were also led away to be executed with Jesus. ³³ When they came to the place called The Skull, they crucified Him there, along with the criminals, one on His right and the other on His left. ³⁴ Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And they divided up His garments by casting lots.

The first words out of His mouth are a prayer for the men doing it.

Not afterward, when the worst was over and He had time to think it through. During. While the hammer was still in somebody’s hand. He does not ask to be spared, and He does not curse anyone. He asks His Father to forgive the people killing Him, and He offers an excuse for them: they do not know what they are doing.

Then Luke, in the same breath, tells you the soldiers were gambling for His clothes. He puts the two side by side and says nothing about it. He does not need to.

Luke 23:35-38 (BSB)

³⁵ The people stood watching, and the rulers sneered at Him, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ of God, the Chosen One.” ³⁶ The soldiers also mocked Him and came up to offer Him sour wine. ³⁷ “If You are the King of the Jews,” they said, “save Yourself!” ³⁸ Above Him was posted an inscription: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Three voices, one argument: save Yourself. The officials say it, the soldiers say it, and the sign over His head says it without meaning to. That sign was Pilate’s doing. Rome posted the charge above a condemned man so passersby knew the crime, and this one was a governor’s joke at the expense of the province he governed.

Listen to what the sneer admits. He saved others. They are not disputing that part. The thing they throw at Him to prove He is nobody is the one thing everybody agrees happened. And He could have come down. The reason He stays up there is not in this chapter.

Luke 23:39-43 (BSB)

³⁹ One of the criminals who hung there heaped abuse on Him. “Are You not the Christ?” he said. “Save Yourself and us!” ⁴⁰ But the other one rebuked him, saying, “Do you not even fear God, since you are under the same judgment? ⁴¹ We are punished justly, for we are receiving what our actions deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.” ⁴² Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when You come into Your kingdom!” ⁴³ And Jesus said to him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.”

Two men in the identical position, in the identical pain, hours from the identical death. One of them spits. The other one turns.

The second man says three things, and they are all hard. He is afraid of God. He is guilty, and he says so out loud in front of witnesses: we are getting what we have earned. And this man next to us has done nothing wrong. Then he asks. Not for rescue, not to be taken down. Just to be remembered, later, by a king with a kingdom, though there is nothing in front of his eyes to suggest either exists.

Now count what he has to offer. Nothing. He cannot climb down and live a better life. He cannot pay back anyone he stole from. He cannot be baptized, join anything, clean anything up, or prove he means it over time. He has hours, and he cannot use them. If a person must first become good enough, this man is the clearest possible case of too late.

Today you will be with Me in Paradise. Not someday. Not if. Today.

That is not a loophole, and it does not make turning optional: the man did turn, plainly and out loud, from his own life to Jesus. He simply had nothing in his hands when he did it. Neither does anyone else.

Luke 23:44-46 (BSB)

⁴⁴ It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over all the land until the ninth hour. ⁴⁵ The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn down the middle. ⁴⁶ Then Jesus called out in a loud voice, “Father, into Your hands I commit My Spirit.” And when He had said this, He breathed His last.

From noon until three in the afternoon, it went dark.

The veil was the heavy curtain inside the Temple that closed off the innermost room, where God’s presence was said to rest, which one man entered one day a year and no one else ever. While Jesus was dying, it tore, top to bottom. Luke reports it in eight words and moves on. What it means is worth a day of its own, and it gets one.

He began this with Father and He ends it with Father. And He is loud. A man in that condition should have nothing left, but Luke says He called out in a loud voice, and then stopped. It reads less like a man running out and more like a man finishing.

Luke 23:47-49 (BSB)

⁴⁷ When the centurion saw what had happened, he gave glory to God, saying, “Surely this was a righteous man.” ⁴⁸ And when all the people who had gathered for this spectacle saw what had happened, they returned home beating their breasts. ⁴⁹ But all those who knew Jesus, including the women who had followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance watching these things.

The first person in Luke’s account to stand at that cross and say something true about Jesus is the officer in charge of killing Him.

A centurion commanded eighty men or so. This was not his first execution, and he was not a believer in anything Jesus taught. He watched this one, and something in it turned him around on the spot, and what came out of his mouth was praise to God and a verdict: this was a righteous man. The Roman army got the right answer before anybody else did.

The crowd goes home beating their chests, which was how grief was shown out loud in that world. The people who loved Him stood at a distance. Luke does not tidy that up, or leave out that the women were the ones who stayed.

Today’s Decision

Read Luke 23:32-49 once more, slowly, out loud if there is anywhere you can. Do not try to settle what you think about it. Just watch, the way the people at a distance watched. Then say one honest sentence to God about what you saw, in your own words, even if the honest sentence is that you do not know whether anyone is listening.