The
Tale of the Crucified Crook
"I tell
you the truth, today you will be with me in paradise” Luke 23:43
The only thing more
outlandish than the request was that it was granted. Just trying to
picture the scene is enough to short-circuit the most fanciful of
imaginations; a flat nosed ex-con asking God's son for eternal life?
But trying to imagine the appeal being honored, well, that steps
beyond the realm of reality and enters absurdity.
But as absurd as it may
appear, that's exactly what happened. He who deserved hell got
heaven, and we are left with a puzzling riddle. What, for goodness'
sake, was Jesus trying to teach us? What was he trying to prove by
pardoning this strong-arm, who in all probability had never said
grace, much less done anything to deserve it.
Well, I've got a theory.
But to explain it, I've got to tell you a tale that you may not
believe.
It seems a couple of
prowlers broke into a department store in a large city. They
successfully entered the store, stayed long enough to do what they
came to do, and escaped unnoticed. What is unusual about the story is
what these fellows did. They took nothing. Absolutely nothing. No
merchandise was stolen. No items were removed. But what they did do
was ridiculous.
Instead of stealing
anything, they changed the cost of everything. Price tags were
swapped. Values were exchanged. These clever pranksters took the tag
off a $395.00 camera and stuck it on a $5.00 box of stationery. The
$5.95 sticker on a paperback book was removed and placed on an
outboard motor. They re-priced everything in the store!
Crazy? You bet. But the
craziest part of this story took place the next morning. (You are not
going to believe this.) The store opened as usual. Employees went to
work. Customers began to shop. The place functioned as normal for
four hours before anyone noticed what had happened.
Four hours! Some people
got some great bargains. Others got fleeced. For four solid hours
no one noticed that all the values had been swapped.
Hard to believe? It
shouldn't be - we see the same thing happening every day. We are
deluged by a distorted value system. We see the most valuable things
in our lives peddled for pennies and we see the cheapest smut go for
millions.
The examples are abundant
and besetting. Here are a few that I've encountered in the last
week.
- The salesman who defended his illegal practices by saying, "Let's not confuse business with ethics."
- The military men who sold top-secret information (as well as their integrity) for $6000.
- The cabinet member of a large nation who was caught illegally dealing in semiprecious stones. His cabinet position? Minister of Justice.
- The father who confessed to the murder of his twelve-year-old daughter. The reason he killed her? She refused to go to bed with him.
Why do we do what we do?
Why do we take blatantly black-and-white and paint it gray? Why are
priceless mores trashed while senseless standards are obeyed? What
causes us to elevate the body and degrade the soul? What causes us
to pamper the skin while we pollute the heart?
Our values are messed up.
Someone broke into the store and exchanged all the price tags.
Thrills are going for top dollar and the value of human beings is at
an all-time low. One doesn't have to be a
philosopher to determine what caused such a sag in the market. It
all began when someone convinced us that the human race is headed
nowhere. That man has no destiny. That
we are in a cycle. That there is no reason or rhyme to this absurd
existence. Somewhere we got the idea that we are meaninglessly
trapped on a puny mud heap that has no destination. The earth is
just a spinning mausoleum and the universe is purposeless. The
creation was incidental and humanity has no direction. Pretty gloomy, huh?
The second verse is even
worse. If man has no destiny, then he has no duty.
No obligation, no responsibility. If man
has no destiny, then he has no guidelines or goals. If man has no
destiny, then who is to say what is right or wrong? Who is to say
that a husband can't leave his wife and family? Who is to say you
can't abort a fetus? What is wrong with shacking up? Who says I
can't step on someone's neck to get to the top? It's your value
system against mine. No absolutes. No principles. No ethics. No
standards. Life is reduced to weekends, paychecks, and quick thrills.
The bottom line is disaster.
"The existentialist,"
writes Jean-Paul Sartre, "finds it extremely
embarrassing that God does not exist, for there disappears with him
all possibility of finding values in an intelligible
heaven .... Everything is indeed permitted if God does not exist, and
man is in consequence forlorn, for he cannot find anything to depend
on within or without himself”
If man has no duty or
destiny, the next logical step is that man has no value.
If man has no future, he isn't worth much.
He is worth, in fact, about as much as a tree or a rock. No
difference. There is no reason to be here, therefore, there is no
value.
And you've seen the
results of this. Our system goes haywire. We feel useless and
worthless. We freak out. We play games. We create false value
systems. We say that you are valuable if you are pretty. We say
that you are valuable if you can produce. We say that you are
valuable if you can slam-dunk a basketball or snag a pop fly. You
are valuable if your name has a "Dr." in front of it or
"Ph.D. on the end of it. You are valuable if you have a
six-figure salary and drive a foreign car.
Pretty tough system, isn't
it? Where does that leave the retarded? Or the ugly or uneducated?
Where does that place the aged or the handicapped? What hope does
that offer the unborn child? Not much. Not much at all. We become
nameless numbers on mislaid lists.
Now please understand,
this is man's value system. It is not God's. His plan is much
brighter. God, with eyes twinkling, steps up to the philosopher's
blackboard, erases the never-ending, ever-repeating circle of history
and replaces it with a line, a hope filled, and promising, slender
line. And, looking over his shoulder to see if the class is watching
He draws an arrow on the end.
In God's book man is
heading somewhere. He has an amazing destiny. We are being prepared
to walk down the church aisle and become the bride of Jesus. We are
going to live with Him. Share the throne with Him. Reign with Him.
We count. We are valuable. And what's more, our worth is built in!
Our value is inborn.
You see, if there was
anything that Jesus wanted everyone to understand it was this: A
person is worth something simply because he is a person. That is why
He treated people like He did. Think about it. The girl caught
making undercover thunder with someone she shouldn't - He forgave
her. The untouchable leper who asked for cleansing - He touched him.
And the blind welfare case that cluttered the roadside - He honored
him. And the worn-out old windbag addicted to self-pity near the
pool of Siloam - He healed him!
And don't forget the
classic case study on the value of a person by Luke. It is called
"The Tale of the Crucified Crook." If anyone was ever
worthless, this one was. If any man ever deserved dying, this man
probably did. If any fellow was ever a loser, this fellow was at the
top of the list. Perhaps that is why Jesus chose him to show us what
He thinks of the human race.
Maybe this criminal had
heard the Messiah speak. Maybe he had seen Him love the lowly. Maybe
he had watched Him dine with the punks, pickpockets, and pot mouths
on the streets. Or maybe not. Maybe the only thing he knew about
this Messiah was what he now saw: a beaten, slashed, nail-suspended
preacher. His face crimson with blood, His bones peeking through
torn flesh, His body heaving for air.
Something, though, told
him that he had never been in better company. And somehow he
realized that even though all he had was a prayer, he had finally met
the One to whom he should pray. "Any chance that you could put
in a good word for me?" (Loose translation.) "Consider it
done."
Now why did Jesus do that?
What in the world did He have to gain by promising this desperado a
place of honor at the banquet table? What in the world could this
chiseling quisling ever offer in return? I mean, the Samaritan woman
I can understand. She could go back and tell the tale. And Zacheus,
he had some money that he could give. But this guy? What is he
going to do? Nothing!
That's the point. Listen
closely. Jesus' love does not depend upon what we do for Him. Not
at all. In the eyes of the King, you have value simply because you
are. You don't have to look nice or perform well. Your value is
inborn. Period.
Think about that for just
a minute. You are valuable just because you exist. Not because of
what you do or what you have done, but simply because you are.
Remember that. Remember that the next time you are left bobbing in
the wake of someone's steamboat ambition. Remember that the next time
some trickster tries to hang a bargain basement price tag on your
self-worth. The next time someone tries to pass you off as a cheap
buy, just think about the way Jesus honors you...and smile.
I do. I smile because I
know I don't deserve love like that. None of us do. When you get
right down to it, any contribution that any of us make is pretty
puny. All of us even the purest of us - deserve heaven about as
much as that crook did. All of us are signing on Jesus' credit card,
not ours.
And it also makes me smile
to think that there is a grinning ex-con walking the golden streets
who knows more about grace than a thousand theologians. No one else
would have given him a prayer. But in the end that is all that he
had. And in the end, that is all it took.
No wonder they call Him the Savior.
No wonder they call Him the Savior.
No
Wonder They Call Him Savior, Max Lucado, Copyright 1986, Word
Publishing, Nashville, Tennessee.
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