“Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy kingdom!” (Luke 23:42)

Just when everyone renounced the humiliated and crucified Christ, the wise thief turned to Him with this penitent appeal. Just when the sentence of death put an end to the last hope in Him as Saviour on the part of Christ’s closest disciples, he, the wise thief, confessed Him as the Messiah. Just when Christ’s adherents abandoned their last dream of a messianic kingdom, the wise thief asked Christ to remember him in this Kingdom… “Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise,” replied the Divine Sufferer…

Who is this wondrous thief, who preceded everyone and was the first to enter the Kingdom of Christ? Who inspired him with such a living faith in the Crucified Christ? Where did he, a denizen of slums and thieves’ dens, hear words of salvation concerning the grace-filled Kingdom of Christ? What force made him an unparalleled follower of Christ, made him the wise thief? Verily the wise thief’s virtues were great, but great things are never achieved through insignificant means: both his virtues and his paradisiacal reward were acquired at a great cost.

Like Christ, the wise thief hung on a cross, suffering deathly torment, and in this terrible state he forgets himself and expresses the greatest reverence towards Christ. This patient endurance of suffering revealed in full force the godlike nature of the wise thief’s soul and immediately redeemed all the sins of his iniquitous life. This truly Christ-like endurance was his first great virtue…

“And we are condemned justly, for we have received the due reward of our deeds, but He hath done nothing amiss” (Luke 23:41). The wise thief does not ask for deliverance or miraculous help, as had demanded the iniquitous thief: “If Thou be Christ, save Thyself and us.” In his prayer of repentance he dares to ask for only one favor, only a single grain of mercy. “Remember”… only remember in Thy Kingdom that I, who have been justly condemned to eternal damnation, have also hung on this Golgotha; for me this will be great mercy and comfort. What depth of feeling and tenderness in this prayer of repentance! How brief and simple is this prayer! “Remember me, O Lord”… Only “remember”… How many millions of human hearts have been moved by this prayer for nearly twenty centuries; the prayer issued from such depths of humility and suffering that every Christian cannot but respond to it, cannot refrain from crossing himself, sighing softly and repenting inwardly. Humble obedience to Divine Truth – such was the second great virtue of the wise thief.

The wise thief presented to the entire world the amazing proof of how a man can fall into the depths of sin and iniquity and still retain the spark of a godlike nature; he showed that it was worth dying for such humanity, and that the distance between the abyss of human depravity and the height of divine grace is not too great or impassable: one decisive moment, one sigh of repentance, and salvation occurred, the wise thief became the first inheritor of the Kingdom of God. Thus the third virtue of the wise thief – a humble entreaty to be remembered – leads him into the Kingdom of God.

Wondrous is the conversion of the wife thief, but even more wondrous is divine forgiveness – Christ’s reply to the wise thief: “Today thou shalt be with Me in paradise.” The doors into the new and most holy Kingdom of God are opening, and the justly-condemned thief is being led into this Kingdom; to him Christ grants His last favor on earth and the first reward in heaven.

Let us, too, take these three decisive steps towards salvation: patient endurance of suffering, the realization of our guilt, and a humble prayer for mercy and forgiveness. Let us turn our eyes and hearts to Him, the Great Giver of absolution, and as we venerate the image of Christ our Saviour lying in the tomb, let us humbly purify our conscience, saying this prayer of repentance: “Remember me, O Lord, when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.”

Metropolitan Vitaly (Ustinov)