No road remained. The promise still reached him.
Beside the Cross
In Luke’s account, Jesus is crucified between two men who have also been condemned. Each speaks to him, but their words move in different directions.
One joins the challenge heard elsewhere in the scene. If Jesus is the Christ, he says, let him save himself and them. The other man rebukes him. Facing the same sentence, he says, they are receiving the consequence of their deeds, while Jesus has done nothing wrong.
Luke does not tell us their names or give a history of their lives. The account lets us hear their words at this moment, without filling in everything that came before.
Then the second man turns to Jesus with a request.
Two Different Responses
The first man’s challenge asks for escape from the immediate sentence. It comes after the rulers and soldiers have also mocked Jesus, urging him to save himself. In Luke’s telling, their words surround the cross with demands for deliverance on their terms.
The second man speaks differently. He acknowledges his own wrongdoing and speaks of Jesus’ innocence. His words do not undo what he has done, nor does Luke describe the full story behind his sentence. The narrative records what he is willing to acknowledge there.
He then looks beyond the moment of condemnation. In the King James Version, he asks Jesus, “Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom.”
The request is deeply personal. He does not ask to be remembered as an example, or supply a list of reasons why he deserves to be heard. In Luke’s account, he asks Jesus to remember him.
Remember Me
Jesus answers him directly: “Verily I say unto thee, To day shalt thou be with me in paradise.”
The man asks to be remembered when Jesus comes into his kingdom. Jesus’ reply, as rendered in the King James Version, speaks of being with him in paradise that very day. The answer is more than an acknowledgment that the request was heard; it promises presence.
Luke does not describe the man’s expression after hearing it. The Gospel gives no further conversation between them. We need not invent one to notice the movement of the exchange: a man asks to be remembered, and Jesus answers with a promise of being together.
For Christian readers, these words have long offered a picture of hope beside suffering. The promise is spoken to someone who has acknowledged wrongdoing, not to someone whose past Luke has carefully edited into a more comfortable story.
A Promise of Presence
The passage is traditionally counted as the second of seven sayings gathered from the Gospel accounts of the cross. Luke gives no precise hour for the conversation, and the familiar numbering belongs to a later arrangement of sayings found across different Gospels.
What Luke does give is a brief exchange between two people facing death. One asks to be remembered. The other replies with a promise that he will not be alone.
The man’s request reaches beyond the place where he is. In the Gospel’s answer, he is promised a place with Jesus.
Livora Gracely ♥
Sources: Luke 23:32–43, King James Version; Luke 23, with Notes; Bible Gateway: Seven Words from the Cross.
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