As we approach Holy Week, a story that always jumps out at me comes from Luke’s account of Jesus’s crucifixion.

We see the first explicit statement of saving faith. We see a sinful man, deservedly being put to death for the sins he has committed, suddenly being forgiven and redeemed in an instant by our Savior while He is actively being crucified to save this man (and us).

Alistair Begg imagined the scenario unfolding this way as this thief on the cross entered paradise: He meets an angel guarding the pearly gates who asks him what he is doing there. The thief doesn’t have an answer other than “I don’t know.” The angel, perplexed, asks, “What do you mean you don’t know?!” Soon, the angel gets a higher up and they begin to grill the thief on his basis for being there. They discover that the thief has no theological knowledge or any other merit that warrants his being there, and the angel explodes and asks one final time, “On what basis are you here?!” The thief finally responds with the only acceptable answer and says, “The man on the middle cross said I can come.”

It doesn’t make any earthly sense. How on earth could this thief, or we, possibly deserve this salvation? Doesn’t God know what we have done? Shouldn’t he give us what we deserve? How could He take our place? But that is the only way of salvation. Like the thief on the cross, we too are saved, not by any works or merit of our own, but by the grace and finished work of Jesus’s death on the cross and His glorious Easter resurrection.

As we approach Holy Week, let us fix our eyes on the cross of Christ and make Him the focus of our attention, knowing the amazing grace we have all received in Him, just like the thief on the cross.