Welcome to 10 minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work.

I'm Patrick Miller. And I'm Keith Simon. Right now we're

learning what it looks like to follow Jesus by working our way through the

Gospel of Luke. Today we come to the most tragic and solemn moment in Luke's Gospel, Jesus' crucifixion. In our next episode we'll read the part where Luke actually describes his death, but today we're going to see him be crucified and read along his agony on the cross.

In this scene, it's a scene laced with irony.

Jesus is mocked and yet every mocking word is truer than its speaker could ever understand.

He's mocked as a false king and yet little do they know that they are witnessing his actual

enthronment.

He's mocked as a powerless savior and yet little do they know that by

his death they are saved. They laugh at him. Why can't you save yourself? But they

don't understand that coming down from the cross what they think of

as him saving himself that would actually mean losing himself because it would mean

disopying the vocation given to him by his heavenly father. No this

this cross this is the only way to Jesus' vindication, to Jesus's salvation,

to the world's salvation through him. The only way is ultimately through death, because that's how God is going to forgive sins and renew his people.

Strangely, the only person who actually gets it, who sees what's happening with Jesus on the cross, The only person who gets it is a criminal.

It's not a disciple. It's not an expert in God's word. No, it's an uneducated criminal who

somehow sees that through death Jesus is going to bring life and forgiveness.

And even as that criminal dies, he begs to partake.

So let's read this story together, Luke 2332.

Two others who were criminals were led away to be put to death with him.

And when they came to the place that is called the skull, there they crucified him and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Let's pause again. We need to talk about crucifixion. You see we can roll past crucifixion that word he was crucified without feeling the horror.

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