Good Friday is Unfair

Luke 23:39-43 - One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, “Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong.” And he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” And he said to him, “Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”

Do you ever complain when things aren’t fair? How do you feel when someone else gets credit for your work and gets the reward you earned? Most of us cry out for fairness most of the time, but Good Friday is one thing we should all be glad is unfair.

I have always been captivated by the story of the thief on the cross. I remember hearing Don Francisco’s musical epic, “Too Small a Price,” taken from these verse before committing my life to Christ. It is told from the thief’s perspective and describes his awe at realizing that Jesus - the Christ, the Messiah, God incarnate – is willingly, yet unjustly, dying the death of a criminal right next to him. The thief does not deserve to ask what he does, but he makes that request of grace anyway: “Remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Then he hears the words from Jesus that should be the greatest longing for each of us, “You will be with me in Paradise.”

I covered that song many times and later as a youth pastor wrote my first first-person narrative sermon based on this story because I never forgot the impact this story had – and still has on me. The perfect, holy, Son of God willingly died an unjust death as a criminal so he could pay the price I owed as one guilty of many crimes and take my place on the cross so that I could be with him in Paradise forever. It was just not fair for him to suffer for me, but it is good.

He suffered for you, too. It does not matter who you are. It does not matter what you have done. Give Jesus your guilt and your burdens and experience the GOOD unfairness of God that Good Friday is all about.