"Jesus Hangs with Criminals - and Us!" - Walking the Palm Sunday Path

During this season of Lent, our Thursday morning Bible study group has been exploring a small book that offers great insights into some of the characters on the fringes of the Palm Sunday path. The book is titled An Unlikely Lent: Extraordinary People of the Easter Story. Using the insights we've gleaned from the author, United Methodist pastor Rachel Billups, along with our own God-given gift of imagination, we've been able to step back and take a fresh look at the Palm Sunday path that leads to Jesus's betrayal, arrest, and crucifixion. For example, this past Thursday, we talked about the courage of the women who show up at the cross when Jesus is crucified. We realized that not only do they show up, they stay there, watching from a distance. We know this is important because all four gospel writers mention the presence of these women disciples, who remain long after their male counterparts have fled and gone into hiding. I found myself resonating with the author's point that the women stay because their relationship with Jesus isn't at all transactional. That is to say, their relationship with him isn't based on any personal benefit of power or status. They aren't following him because they believe he will help them overthrow the Roman forces occupying their homeland or because they believe he will provide them with tangible things like wealth or power or status. No! The women stay close to the cross because of their deep love for Jesus. They love him so much they just can't bear to stay away - especially when their beloved teacher is suffering the unimaginable pain of abandonment and crucifixion.

So, our Lenten Bible study has inspired me to wonder: What might you and I learn by looking at Jesus's two unlikely companions hanging on crosses beside him at Golgotha, the place called "The Skull?" Besides the narrator's brief description of these men, what can we learn from the things they themselves say to Jesus? And what can we learn from Jesus's response?... One of the first things we notice is that Luke's narrator labels the two men "criminals" - an obvious contrast with Jesus, the innocent one who's been unjustly condemned. But that label shouldn't cause us to dismiss or discard them. I mean, Jesus certainly doesn't! And besides that, who among us would want to be judged and forever labeled based on the worst moments of our lives?! [Show of hands, if that's how you'd like to be remembered!. .. Yeah, that's what I figured!...]

So, let's step back and briefly examine the setting of this story; then we'll take a closer look at the interaction between the criminals and Jesus. When we meet up with Jesus in today's reading from Luke 23, he's hanging on a cross between two criminals. In a commentary on this passage, the Rev. Dr. Melva Sampson writes:

[These men's] bodies hang in the open air as a lesson in submission. This is not just a religious scene, but a political one. Luke places Jesus inside a system of state violence that looks eerily familiar. Crucifixion is Rome's version of mass incarceration, racialized policing, immigration detention, and public execution rolled into one. It is the machinery of control, and God steps in not as judge, not as governor, not as general, but as a condemned human being.¹

Let's pause for a moment to let that sink in: God steps in...as a condemned human being - as one who hangs side by side with criminals. I would also add: God steps in as brown-skinned human being, who hangs side by side with other brown-skinned human beings. After all, Jesus was a Palestinian Jew, whose skin wasn't white....

When the first criminal speaks, he joins the chorus of authorities and soldiers who are taunting Jesus, saying, "If you are the Messiah, save yourself!" His jeering cry echoes theirs: "Aren't you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!..." Friends, as I step back to take a fresh look at this scene, I can hear the fear and grief woven into the desperate cry of this man, who is staring into the face of death. Can you hear it, too?... I can't help wondering: What brought this man to the place of the Skull? What brought him to this bitter and barren place, where he can neither perceive nor receive the reconciling promise of God? Pondering these things, I find myself resonating with the words of Dr. Sampson, who observes that this man's plea is "the cry of those who have prayed and still been caged, deported, brutalized, forgotten"² {emphasis added).

Turning our attention to the second criminal, we see that in some ways he stands in contrast to the first. In the beginning, he speaks to rebuke his counterpart for mocking both Jesus and the saving power of God. Acknowledging his own misdeeds, the second criminal calls on the other man to take responsibility for his crimes. The fact that he seems to know something about his counterpart leads me to wonder whether they were perhaps partners in crime!... At any rate, the second man then turns directly to Jesus, pleading, "Jesus, remember me when you come in your kingdom." And without missing a beat, Jesus replies with words of assurance, "Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise...." Whoa! Did you catch that, friends?! Jesus says, "Today!..." Not tomorrow. Not someday. But "today." Right here and now. In this moment, on the cross:

"You will be with me in Paradise!..." What an incredible promise! I mean, think about what it means that God is present with God's children in the midst of the most unimaginable suffering. Think about what it means that God's promise of new life is available to us when you and I have been hung out to dry and when we have our backs to the wall.... Imagine what Jesus's words might mean to those who've been told their whole life long, "You have no value. You are worthless and dispensable. You deserve to be erased." To these suffering ones, Jesus says, "You are created in the image of God. You are worthy and beloved. And in God's eyes, you will never be erased or forgotten!..." Also, notice that even though Jesus doesn't respond directly to the mocking words of the first criminal, the prayer he offers for all those who are tormenting and crucifying him also covers this man: "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing  "³ Now, I can't speak for you, but personally, I take great comfort in knowing that our God is infinitely more loving and forgiving than we human beings are! [Amen?  ]

Friday afternoon I went for a walk in my neighborhood, and as I crested the top of a hill just beyond the one-mile mark, I saw a couple standing in front of a car with its hood up. They had their backs to me, so, the first thing I noticed was that the man was wearing a sweatshirt that said "Imago Dei" in large script. I was curious, so I took a closer look at the smaller lettering underneath, which read, "made in the image of God." As I walked by, the couple greeted me, "Hello! How're you doing?" "Fine," I replied. "How about you?" "Good!," they responded. I smiled and said, "I like your sweatshirt. It's pretty awesome!..." And as I continued my walk, I wondered about that couple. I'd noticed that she was white, while he was Black. And considering the fact that my neighborhood is probably more than 90% white, seeing an African American man wearing that particular sweatshirt me smile even more. I thought, "Yes! Here's someone who knows who he is - no matter what labels anyone else might try to put on him: My neighbor knows that he is first and foremost a child of God, a human being made in the image and likeness of our loving Creator...." And guess what, friends: The same is true for each and every one of us! No matter who we are, no matter where we come from, no matter what the color of our skin, no matter what we've done or failed to do, and no matter what labels others try to slap on us; indeed, in God's eyes, the only label that sticks is "imago Dei'': in the image of God!...

My friends, when Jesus hangs the cross, he isn't hanging above those men who've been labeled "criminals," looking down on them. He's hanging with two of his human siblings in solidarity - just as he hangs with you and me...in solidarity  Hanging on the

cross, Jesus exudes no wrath or bitterness. Instead, he extends his arms to offer forgiveness. At the very same time, he also extends an invitation to enter into Paradise -- the very presence of God. Furthermore, Jesus declares that Paradise begins NOT in the next life, but "today" - that is, in the very moment we accept his invitation to enter into a loving, living relationship with the God he has come to reveal.... To rephrase something I said earlier, Jesus' invitation is a lifeline you and I can hang onto when we find ourselves hung out to dry and when our backs are to the wall.... This invitation to new life is also a good thing for us to bear in mind as we walk the Palm Sunday path with Jesus, who calls us to courageously tell the truth about the crosses of our own time and to continue his work of standing with and for the innocent ones who are being crucified by empire today. The Rev. Dr. Melva Sampson paints a sobering picture of what we're up against:

We live in a world where cages are normalized. Where over two million people are locked in prisons and jails. Where Black and brown bodies are policed as threats. Where immigrants are detained in "facilities" that function like warehouses for human beings. Where people are disappeared into systems that make suffering invisible. These are not anomalies. They are modern crucifixions, public warnings disguised as public safety.⁴

I would also add one sobering fact to Dr. Sampson's observations: Many of the prisons and immigrant detention centers in the United States today are being run by for-profit companies, which means they have an incentive to build more and bigger prisons and warehouses with the maximum number of beds and the minimum level of care..... Today far too many of God's children find themselves incarcerated in cramped and cruel conditions, hidden away "out of sight and out of mind" and, therefore, forgotten by most of the world....

And yet even as he hangs on the cross, Jesus declares that no one is beyond redemption, and no one is forgotten. As followers of Jesus, you and I are called to carry the loving, liberating, life-giving message of the cross to those who are being unjustly vilified and victimized, condemned and crucified in cells, camps, courtrooms, and streets. Today let us share the good news with our neighbors wherever we go - the good news that God is here with us and for us. Today and every day, our God remembers each and every one of us, for we are fil!_lmago Dei - made in the image and likeness of our loving Creator - and nothing can ever separate us from the love of God revealed through the outstretched, welcoming arms of Christ Jesus our Lord.⁵

Thanks be to God! Amen.

¹ Melva Sampson, "Luke 23:39-43 -Jesus Promises Paradise to Another Victim of Crucifixion," "Walking the Palm Sunday Path" Preaching Series (5 of 6), www.workingpreacher.org, 22 January 2026.

² Ibid.

3 Luke 23:34.

⁴ Melva Sampson, Luke 23:39-43 -Jesus Promises Paradise to Another Victim of Crucifixion," "Walking the Palm Sunday Path" Preaching Series (S of 6), www.workingpreacher.org, 22 January 2026.

⁵ See Romans 8:38-39.

"Jesus Hangs with Criminals - and Us!" - Walking the Palm Sunday Path