Scripture Daily

Context No. 669 of 4322 · Luke

Context · Reflection

Luke 23:32-37: in context

32There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death. 33When they came to the place that is called “The Skull”, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. 34Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.” Dividing his garments among them, they cast lots. 35The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!” 36The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, 37and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!”

Luke has brought the story to its end. Jesus is led out with two criminals to the place called the Skull and crucified between them, one on his right and one on his left. And the first thing Luke records from the cross is not a cry of pain but a prayer for the people driving in the nails: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing. Only Luke keeps this line. Below him the soldiers divide his clothing by lot, as an old psalm had said they would.

Then the mockery starts, and from every side it says the same thing. The rulers scoff: he saved others, let him save himself, if he is the Christ. The soldiers join in: if you are the King of the Jews, save yourself. It is the temptation from the wilderness come back for a last try, the voice that said prove it, use your power on your own behalf. Everything in the scene presses him to come down. He does not. The taunt he saved others, himself he cannot save is exactly wrong, and exactly right: the not-saving of himself is the saving of them.

The whole cross urged him to save himself, and the saving of others was in refusing. Where is staying put the harder, truer thing, when everything tells me to spare myself?

Sources