Friday, March 21, 2008
The tactless thief
In the spirit of Good Friday, I shall share about a character in the Passion narratives whom I find myself relating with: The unrepentant thief. For starters, I don't believe that he is unrepentant. I'd imagine the same pain that he and Jesus are going through and in a moment of desperation, he calls out to Jesus to save them both. Nothing wrong with that. When you have nails driven through your hands and blood trickling over your body, being tactful would be the least of your concerns. A poor misunderstood fellow. If anything, I'd say he is a believer of God, precisely becos he knows the miracles that Jesus is capable of performing.
So, the unrepentant thief, i.e. the tactless fellow who was calling out to God in his moment of desperation, is not as evil a character as people make him out to be. How would I know? Becos I too, am hanging on the cross and like the thief, I find myself uttering the same words to Christ: "Save yourself, and us too." Does that mean I don't trust in God, or think that Jesus is a fake? Not necessarily. But like the thief, I guess I don't see the light at the end of the tunnel, neither do I want to carry on with the pain of the cross.
Posted by Jo at 11:13 PM
