The Man Who Was Crucified beside Him

For one man, Good Friday started as the worst day of his life, for it was his last, yet it ended as his best. Today, Sinclair Ferguson looks at the man to whom Jesus said, “Today you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

We’ve been thinking all this week about the people Jesus encountered and who encountered Jesus during the week of His passion, and today is what we call Good Friday. I don’t think we know for sure how it came to be called that. Most of us have heard at least one sermon on what makes Good Friday good, with the answer being that on that day, the greatest good since the creation of the world was accomplished. But there’s another tradition that suggests the origin lies in the Old English: God’s Friday. This day commemorates the work of God for our salvation.

But did anyone who participated in the events of that day think of it, at the time, as a good Friday? It certainly didn’t seem like that for any of the people we’ve been talking about this week—for Judas Iscariot, or Peter, or Pontius Pilate, or at the time for Simon of Cyrene—nor for others. Mary was losing her son. John was watching his best friend die. The Roman centurion might have looked back on it as a turning point in his life maybe, but we can’t be sure. Even the religious leaders who engineered our Lord’s crucifixion had all kinds of anxieties about the day. After all, they’d been trying to avoid Jesus being executed at the time of the Feast of the Passover.

But there was one man for whom the day started as the worst day in his life, but ended not only as the last day, but as the best day. In the morning, he had been dragged along with two others from his prison cell and forced to carry the instrument of his own crucifixion. From around midday, he began to experience the agony of crucifixion, a torturous form of execution that actually led the great Roman orator, Cicero, to say the very word should be absent from the lips of a Roman citizen.

Sometimes it could take days for a man to die, ultimately by asphyxiation. And maybe all this man could hope for was that since Passover was about to begin, the execution squad would have mercy and do something to hasten his end. At first, he had the strength to curse—to curse anything and everything. He noticed that the crowd who had gathered seemed focus on the man who was hanging on the cross beside him. They were mocking Him.

What must have struck him was that the chief priests were there too. That was strange. Wasn’t one of the most sacred days in the year about to begin? What were they doing there, and why were they mocking Him? He could surely hear what they were shouting: “So You saved others, did You? Let’s see You save Yourself,” and: “If He’s the King of Israel, let Him come down now from the cross. Then we’ll believe in Him. He trusts in God. Let’s see if God really cares about Him. He said He was the Son of God. Look at the Son of God now.”

And at first, he joined in the shouts. He was in agony and he was angry. But then he heard an echo of his own words from the other side of the man beside him: “Are you not the Christ? Then save Yourself and us.” But the words were bitter. They were words of anger and hatred, but the man hanging on the center cross beside him was without anger or bitterness. “Father, forgive them,” He had prayed, “They don’t know what they’re doing.” And something happened in the man’s heart. He shouted over to the criminal on the other side: “We deserve this, but He doesn’t. He’s done nothing wrong.”

Somehow, it felt as though he’d been struggling in his pain to solve a puzzle, and now the pieces were beginning to come together: “This man, this man who had somehow saved others, He surely must be Jesus of Nazareth. Most people in Jerusalem seem to know what He had done. Could that notice on His cross be true, ‘Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews’? And that prayer, that prayer for the forgiveness of those who were crucifying Him, that was amazing.”

I don’t suppose he could put it all completely together, but this much was clear: this was the King, this was the Messiah who had been promised, promised to open the gate into the kingdom of God. What should he do? What could he say? He turned his head to Jesus and said these never-to-be-forgotten words: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom” (Luke 23:42).

That Friday began as the worst day of his life. It was the last day of his life, but it was the best day of his life because the Lord Jesus said to him, “Today, you will be with me in paradise” (Luke 23:43).

It wasn’t an easy road that brought him to Jesus. It was strewn with his own sin and failure. But at last, he was brought near to Jesus to recognize Him as Savior and King, to turn to Him, to cast himself on His mercy, and to find forgiveness and eternal life. And now he’s with Jesus in paradise. That’s what made this Friday “Good Friday” for him, and it’s the only thing that can make it good for us too. I hope you’ve turned to Christ as he did, because if you have, you’ll surely have, like him, a blessed Easter.