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One Innocent Man
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Luke 23:40-41 The other rebuked him saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.”
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Download audio fileIn the legal systems of most civilised nations, the burden of proof on the prosecution to attain a conviction is very high. There’s a reason for that. The law is based on that old saying, “better that ten guilty men should go free than one innocent man be punished.”
So as much as we sometimes want to criticise our judicial system for letting someone whom we consider to be obviously guilty, go free, hey … if you or I were that one innocent man or woman before a court, my guess is we’d greatly appreciate such a high burden of proof. Am I right?
So there’s Jesus on that first ‘Good’ Friday, a Friday I suspect that seemed anything but ‘good’ … hanging, suffering on that cross. Gasping for air, suffocating over several hours, with His weight borne by the nails in His hands and His feet.
The suffering is completely incomprehensible. There are two other men crucified with Him that day. One to His left, the other to His right. One of those men derides Jesus:
Hey, hey, you … aren’t you the Messiah? Then why don’t you set us free.
But the other criminal, he has a completely different perspective:
The other rebuked him saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” (Luke 23:40-41)
That’s the point isn’t it? We have a strong inbuilt sense of justice you and I, particularly when we’re on the receiving end of it. When an injustice is done to us, we fight against it, complain, struggle. Because we subscribe to that idea that an innocent person shouldn’t be punished.
Don’t you see the terrible injustice of the Cross. The one innocent man suffered and died – He was innocent!!! And yet He suffered and died so that you and I could go free.
Good Friday should really be remembered as a day of terrible injustice when an innocent man suffered and died, so that the guilty could go free. A shocking injustice!
And yet through that injustice, the mercy of God and the grace of God are poured out on you and on me. We just don’t deserve it, and yet it happened anyway.
Mercy can only be mercy if it’s undeserved. Grace can only be grace when it’s undeserved. If we deserved them, they’d be a right. As it is, we don’t. And yet despite our undeservedness, indeed, because of it, the love of God flows out through that cross to you and to me and to everyone who puts their trust in this Jesus.
Jesus died so that you could be forgiven, so that you could be set free. That’s God’s gift of love.
And that’s God’s Word. Fresh … for you … today.
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