The Thief that Stole Heaven

Bulletin Letter, Lenten Sunday 2B

Tradition gives the name St. Dismas to the Good Thief in St. Luke’s account of the crucifixion. He’s the recipient of the second of the Last Words of Jesus from the Cross, one of the most beautiful promises ever uttered: Amen, I say to you, today you will be with Me in paradise (Lk 23:43). What had this dying criminal done or said to prompt such an amazing response from the Lord? 

St. Dismas defends the innocence of Jesus against the revilings of the crowd and of the other criminal crucified with them. He also accepts his own punishment as a just sentence for the crimes he had committed, as expiation for his sins. He says to the other criminal who had mocked Jesus, Do even you have no fear of God, seeing that you are under the same sentence of death? And we indeed justly, for what we are receiving corresponds to our crimes. But this man did nothing wrong. 

Even his petition to the Lord evidences profound humility and the greatest faith: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He doesn’t ask for a seat of honor but merely that Jesus would remember him. And it’s one thing to talk about Christ’s kingdom when you see Him transfigured in glory on Mount Tabor or witness His miracles of healing and multiplication of loaves and fish to feed thousands. It takes another degree of faith for a man dying on a cross to speak of the entrance into a kingdom of another man dying on a cross next to him. 

Some have wondered how it’s possible that Jesus could speak of the thief being with Him “today” in paradise. We usually say that Jesus was the first to enter into heaven, but His Ascension wouldn’t be for at least another 40 days. The souls of both Jesus and St. Dismas, however, would both go to the place of the dead. When we confess in the Apostles’ Creed that Jesus “descended into hell,” this is the place we’re talking about, not the hell of the damned but where the souls of all the saints of the Old Testament were waiting for the Coming Messiah. And after his own death, arriving in that place now radiant with the light of Christ, St. Dismas would already be in paradise because he would be with God, with Christ and all those who had awaited the arrival of the Savior. Jesus made the land of the dead a paradise by His Presence there. 

As we continue through Lent, may we imitate the virtues of St. Dismas in his last moments, accepting with patience the sufferings of our daily lives as reparation for our many sins, and making his prayer our own with great faith: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.