The Good Thief

There is a surprising bit in Malory’s Morte d’Arthur in which one of the Knights of the Round Table is approached by a priest to do confession and penance. And the knight responds that as a knight errant he has little need for the sacrament; because the sufferings of his station are so great.

Yet this seem theologically right. Any suffering we face in life serves as payment for sin. 

Otherwise how else to interpret what Jesus says on the cross to St. Dismas, the Good Thief: “Today you will be with me in paradise.”

Dismas is a sinful man. He himself admits that he deserves his punishment. Yet Jesus says he will spend no time in purgatory. He seems to make a special point of saying so.

The reason must be because he has already received full punishment for his sin on earth. As Dismas puts it, “the sentence we received corresponds to our crimes.”

This also makes better sense of many of the Beatitudes, in which Jesus suggests that those who mourn, those who are poor, those who are persecuted, are blessed.

Worth remembering in hard times.

The Good Thief

Luke 23:

39 One of the criminals who were hanged railed at him, saying, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" 40But the other rebuked him, saying, "Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? 41And we indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong." 42And he said, "Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom." 43And he said to him, "Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in Paradise."

This passage strikes me as fundamentally important. It tells us exactly how, even though we are sinners, we can be saved—for St. Dismas, “The Good Thief,” is clearly a sinner, yet is saved.

Dismas, the second thief, so named in the apocryphal Gospel of Nicodemus, is often also called “The Penitent Thief.” But I don’t think that quite gets to the point of this little parable. Nowhere does Dismas actually say he is sorry for his deeds. Nor is it clear that the first thief is not. For all we can tell, the first thief was sorrier. He just did not want to be punished, which is something else again—and often a good reason to be sorry.

Nor is it that Dismas shows faith, in the usual Protestant sense; that he acknowledges Jesus as his personal savior. We can’t see that he does, he may conceivably see Jesus only as an innocent man, and be humouring him with talk of his kingdom. By contrast, the first thief genuinely does acknowledge Jesus as the Christ, in so many words, and asks for personal salvation—and he is apparently refused.

So what is it that earns St. Dismas the laurel?

It is that the first seeks to avoid punishment for his actions; while for Dismas, justice is more important than his own punishment. Possibly believing that Jesus could save him, he rejects the idea passionately, for the sake of justice. And for the same reason, a thirst for justice, it concerns him most that Jesus is punished as an innocent man.

Blessed are those who thirst after righteousness.

This is the essential requirement for salvation: not that we always avoid sin, nor that we happen to know Jesus personally, but that we endorse righteousness as an absolute value. This is the same as endorsing Jesus Christ himself, for this is what he is—the Way, the Truth, and the Light.