_Amen I say to thee, to-day thou shalt be with Me in Paradise._
Our Divine Lord, in this Second Word, immediately applies and
illustrates the First and drives its lesson home. He shows us how the
rain of mercy that poured out of heaven in answer to the prayer He made
just now enlightens the man who, above all others present on Calvary,
was the most abjectly ignorant of all; the man who, himself at the very
heart of the tragedy, understood it less, probably, than the smallest
child on the outskirts of the crowd.
His life had been one long defiance of the laws of both God and man. He
had been a member of one of those troops of human vermin that crawl
round Jerusalem, raiding solitary houses, attacking solitary travellers,
guilty of sins at once the bloodiest and the meanest, comparable only to
the French _apaches_ of our own day. Well, he had been gripped at last
by the Roman machine, caught in some sordid adventure, and here,
resentful and furious and contemptuous, full of bravado and terror, he
snarled like a polecat at every human face he saw, snarled and spat at
the Divine Face Itself that looked at him from a cross that was like his
own; and, since he had not even a spark of the honour that is reputed to
exist "among thieves," taunted his "fellow criminal" for the folly of
His "crime."
"If thou be the Christ, save Thyself and us."
Again, then, the Paradox is plain enough. Surely an educated priest, or
a timid disciple, or a good-hearted dutiful soldier who hated the work
he was at, surely one of these will be the first object of Christ's
pardon; and so one of these would have been, if one of ourselves had
hung there. But when God forgives, He forgives the most ignorant
first--that is, the most remote from forgiveness--and makes, not Peter
or Caiphas or the Centurion, but Dismas the thief, the firstfruits of
Redemption.
I. The first effect of the Divine Mercy is Enlightenment. _Before they
call, I will answer_. Before the thief feels the first pang of sorrow
Grace is at work on him, and for the first time in his dreary life he
begins to understand. And an extraordinary illumination shines in his
soul. For no expert penitent after years of spirituality, no sorrowful
saint, could have prayed more perfectly than this outcast. His
intellect, perhaps, took in little or nothing of the great forces that
were active about him and within him; he knew, perhaps, explicitly
little or nothing of Who this was that hung beside him; yet his soul's
intuition pierces to the very heart of the mystery and expresses itself
in a prayer that combines at once a perfect love, an exquisite humility,
an entire confidence, a resolute hope, a clear-sighted faith, and an
unutterable patience; his soul blossoms all in a moment: _Lord, remember
me when Thou comest in Thy Kingdom_. He saw the glory behind the shame,
the Eternal Throne behind the Cross, and the future behind the present;
and he asked only to be _remembered_ when the glory should transfigure
the shame and the Cross be transformed into the Throne; for he
understood what that remembrance would mean: "_Remember, Lord_, that I
suffered at Thy side."
II. So perfect, then, are the dispositions formed in him by grace that
at one bound _the last is first_. Not even Mary and John shall have the
instant reward that shall be his; for them there are other gifts, and
the first are those of separation and exile. For the moment, then, this
man steps into the foremost place and they who have hung side by side on
Calvary shall walk side by side to meet those waiting souls beyond the
veil who will run so eagerly to welcome them. _To-day thou shalt be with
Me in Paradise._
III. Now this Paradox, _the last shall be first_, is an old doctrine of
Christ, so startling and bewildering that He has been forced to repeat
it again and again. He taught it in at least four parables: in the
parables of _the Lost Piece of Silver, the Lost Sheep, the Prodigal
Son_, and _the Vineyard_. The Nine Pieces lie neglected on the table,
the Ninety-nine sheep are exiled in the Fold, the Elder Son is, he
thinks, overlooked and slighted, and the Labourers complain of
favouritism. Yet still, even after all this teaching, the complaint goes
up from Christians that God is too loving to be quite just. A convert,
perhaps, comes into the Church in middle age and in a few months
develops the graces of Saint Teresa and becomes one of her daughters. A
careless black-guard is condemned to death for murder and three weeks
later dies upon the scaffold the death of a saint, at the very head of
the line. And the complaints seem natural enough. _Thou hast made them
equal unto us who have borne the burden and heat of the day_.
Yet look again, you Elder Sons. Have your religious, careful, timid
lives ever exhibited anything resembling that depth of self-abjection to
which the Younger Son has attained? Certainly you have been virtuous and
conscientious; after all, it would be a shame if you had not been so,
considering the wealth of grace you have always enjoyed. But have you
ever even striven seriously after the one single moral quality which
Christ holds up in His own character as the point of imitation: _Learn
of Me, for I am meek and lowly of heart_? It is surely significant that
He does not say, expressly, Learn of Me to be pure, or courageous, or
fervent; but _Learn to be humble_, for in this, above all, you shall
_find rest to your souls_. Instead, have you not had a kind of gentle
pride in your religion or your virtue or your fastidiousness? In a
word, you have not been as excellent an Elder Son as your brother has
been a Younger. You have not corresponded with your graces as he has
corresponded with his. You have never yet been capable of sufficient
lowliness to come home (which is so much harder than to remain there),
or of sufficient humility to begin for the first time to work with all
your heart only an hour before sunset.
Begin, then, at the beginning, not half-way up the line. Go down to the
church door and beat your breast and say not, God reward me who have
done so much for Him, but _God be merciful to me_ who have done so
little. Get off your seat amongst the Pharisees and go down on your
knees and weep behind Christ's couch, if perhaps He may at last say to
you, _Friend, come up higher_.