(I've not watched the images on the video, only listened.)
This song has been on my mind all day. It is Good Friday. God's Friday. This is the most poignant part of the crucifixion of Jesus, for me. There God Incarnate is. Dying. Near him are two others, dying, suffering just as he is. One mocks Jesus, pleading for his own life, asking Jesus to "save us, and [him]self!" The other man accepts that he is dying, right next to the Christ. He chides the first man, reminding him that they are both condemned justly, but that Jesus had done nothing to deserve death ..and yet, he hung their dying as well.
Imagine this man, turning to Jesus ..calling to Jesus. Imagine him saying with every desperate gasp of his dying breaths, "Jesus .. remember me when you come into your kingdom."
The entire point of the betrayal, the death, and the rising of Christ happens in Jesus next words.. "truly, I tell you: today, you will be with me in paradise." The man Jesus says these words to is a criminal. And yet, Jesus, as he hang dying as well, invites the man to be with him in paradise. Jesus makes a relationship with this man.
This isn't particularly eloquent or profound; Jesus takes all that credit today. I am glad to call him teacher and brother.
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