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The people stood watching, and the rulers even sneered at him. They said, \u201cHe saved others; let him save himself if he is God\u2019s Messiah, the Chosen One.\u201d \xa0The soldiers also came up and mocked him. They offered him wine vinegar and said, \u201cIf you are the king of the Jews, save yourself.\u201d There was a written notice above him, which read: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS. \xa0One of the criminals who hung there hurled insults at him: \u201cAren\u2019t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!\u201d But the other criminal rebuked him. \u201cDon\u2019t you fear God,\u201d he said, \u201csince you are under the same sentence? We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.\u201d \xa0Then he said, \u201cJesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.\u201d \xa0Jesus answered him, \u201cTruly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.\u201d (Luke 23:35-40)

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The king who saves?\xa0 What a joke.\xa0

Jesus hung there on display for all the world to see: labeled as a king.\xa0 A king with no kingdom.\xa0 No power.\xa0 No authority.\xa0 It was a mocking statement in itself.\xa0 Pilate may have thought it humorous to nail up the figurative king of the Jews and stick the religious leaders with their own words.\xa0 They may have coerced him into crucifying the innocent Jesus by stirring up the crowd, but Pilate would get the last laugh as they found themselves humiliated, again.\xa0 Their people made into a mockery: here hangs the Jewish king.\xa0 A king who can\u2019t save anyone, not even himself.

And yet, humiliated or not, the rulers would not be humbled.\xa0 Instead, they put on strength by throwing their own angry insults at this messiah king.\xa0 They admit that he had saved others, but they use it not as an article of belief, but as a barb.\xa0 \u201cSave yourself, messiah!\u201d\xa0 His saving of others had, in fact, been the very barb that had so unsettled their power.\xa0 Now they stood condemned by their own words: conspirators against the Lord\u2019s salvation.\xa0 They should\u2019ve known better.

The soldiers and criminals perhaps less so, though.\xa0 They didn\u2019t have theological degrees.\xa0 The Roman soldiers didn\u2019t even know what a messiah was.\xa0 They just use the term \u201cking.\u201d\xa0 Ignorant brutes who jumped on for a good time.\xa0

Then there was the first criminal. He had not become humbled by his own crucifixion, but cynical: putting on strength as the religious leaders had to cover his guilt.\xa0 Defiant, he shouts out with the rest: \u201cdon\u2019t just save yourself, but us too!\u201d\xa0

But one person wasn\u2019t laughing.\xa0 One person still feared God.\xa0 He\u2019s the only person that doesn\u2019t ask to be saved.\xa0 And yet, he\u2019s the only person who was.\xa0 He did not make a mockery of salvation or the kingdom of God, but humbly sought both.\xa0

The criminal on the cross is another paradigm of discipleship in Luke\u2019s account, along with Simon of Cyrene and the women.\xa0 This criminal recognizes his sinfulness which had won him punishment by death.\xa0 He, like Jesus, had taken up his cross and was dying to himself and his sin.\xa0 And it is here, in humility that he seeks\u2014not to be saved\u2014but merely to be remembered by this Messiah and coming King.\xa0 This little prayer in faith though, wins him more than he could\u2019ve asked or imagined.\xa0 \u201cTruly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.\u201d\xa0 \xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0\xa0

It is not in putting on strength, but in giving it up that we find the humility to ask for what it is that we most need from God: saving.

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