NOTES for Luk 23:35-43

Every person has to endure severe physical pain at least once in life. In such a condition a person becomes irritable and angry at everything and everyone, dreaming only that everyone will leave him alone and that the pain will finally cease. It is difficult even to imagine the physical pain of a person crucified on a cross. This makes it all the easier to understand why one of the criminals shouts and curses. And it makes it all the more astonishing that the other, himself also a criminal and murderer, behaves entirely differently. The fact that Jesus promises him paradise tells us once again about a God of Mercy rather than a God of justice. For what matters to Him is not when we make the choice in His favour, but that we make that choice.