Part one of the “Profiling the Good Thief” series
By Marcellus Allen Roberts *
“By God’s grace, the thief on Christ’s right offers the last of his wretched life in exchange for a passport to Paradise and Jesus accepts the offer. Today, he is venerated in the Church as St. Dismas, or by the paradoxical name of ‘The Good Thief'”
An angry stampede of sandaled feet are kicking up dust at the Place of the Skull — Golgotha. Three men hang from nails, pinned to crucifixes in a backwater division of ancient Palestine. The mixed multitude attending the spectacle perform the roles assigned to them by the content of their character: some spit, others weep; soldiers sweat while executing their gruesome duties. The condemned bleed. A stillness holds the wind under arrest and the desert soil opens its maw to encapsulate the descending moistures, leaving behind tiny bulbs of soft clay. This hallowed ground is fertile. But for what?
“Command that these two sons of mine may sit, one at your right hand and one at your left, in your kingdom.”(Matthew 20:21)
As St. John the Beloved recalls his mother’s request, his gaze pans to the right of our Lord. Then it pans to the left. These two men beside the Messiah are known thieves, robbers capable of subtle deceptions and sudden violence, men deserving of this humiliating treatment, justly proscribed by Roman law. Yet, it is the Father’s will that his innocent Son die, flanked by flagrant felons, in this, His final hour. St. John’s eyes open wide.
Put yourself in the sandals of the thief on Christ’s right (our left). What would it be like, honestly, attempting to shoulder the weight of his spiritual oppression, or entertaining the suffocating fever of his mental illness, or welcoming, with the open arms of understanding, the fractured shards of his emotional state? You might come to admire his instinct for survival, at the cost of grieving the way his unrestrained impulses shred without anesthetic. You may notice that his sharp wit lacks the aesthetic of stained glass.
Search his memories. Going back only a few hours, the thief is undergoing a scourging. His body is present for the beating, but his mind disassociates itself from the moment. He drifts back to his last robbery on the road to Jericho. His victim’s robe, ring and sandals fit the thief as if they had been made for him. He remembers the unfortunate pilgrim’s eyes, swollen almost shut, eyes full of fear and… pity.
Another lashing welts the thief’s body, freezing a scream behind the constricted vocal folds of his windpipe and involuntarily arcing his back, fingers and toes in a transitory pose of grotesqueness. For a moment, he is a living, breathing gargoyle.
As the plume of pain feathers its way throughout his nervous system, the thief drifts back to his youth… His adolescent frame is too weak to inflict real damage, but he swings wildly and lands a punch before being completely overwhelmed by the blows of older, much stronger men. Thankfully, he doesn’t have to win, he only has to endure without surrendering.
Drunken members of this band of thieves cheer, jeer and join in. Their greatest weapon is neither their fists nor their swords; they wield adult male charisma to exploit women, children and one another.
With an embrace, they pour cheap wine into the wounds they have inflicted on the young thief; they coax stolen wine down his throat; they stroke his ego and give him a new name. They utilize the branding effects of trauma to knit a new web of synapses in the young man’s brain. Then, they label it love. These are his brother, his sister, his mother. His eyes are swollen shut, eyes full of fear — and pride.
Another lashing shrieks in the air and splits his tender flesh. The thief barks curses — a barrage of irreverent metaphors let loose from the abundance of his licentious heart. He is a brute beast, yes? Fit only to be destroyed, yes?
Now, consider the thief to the left of our Lord (our right).
Both men suffer from a fallen nature and an immoral nurture. Their backstories, up to this point, are identical.
But one of them, before Jesus draws his last breath, will be translated from his life of present darkness, into the kingdom of God’s beloved Son.
The image of the three crosses perfectly symbolizes the spiritual combat that an inmate must engage in and overcome.
The criminal has to decide what he sees when he comes face to face with Jesus. He has to decide whether Jesus is an unlucky con man, a religious charlatan who went all in and let it ride instead of folding his hand and charging his losses to the game. The alternative is that the thief goes all in himself, and trusts that the mangled man in his midst is the blameless King of the heavenly realms, a king willing to die in order to populate His dominion with the living souls who seek redemption in His name.
It takes courage to come to God. Belief in Christ is not palatable to the cowardly. The threat of rejection keeps many fainthearted souls from approaching the gates of the kingdom and begging for a share in Christ’s victory. They’ve squandered the benefits of their earthly citizenship and can’t fathom a God who could create a holy nation from failed individuals. They can’t abide the word “no,” so they ask nothing of God and receive nothing in return.
How is it that so many cannot see God’s mercy, His loving kindness, in the humility of his Son? Both thieves are eyewitnesses to Jesus being made like them in every way except sin. In fact, never had they seen a man brought so low.
The thief to Christ’s left (our right) takes the opportunity and lords it over our Lord. His blasphemies are verbal expressions of the doubts he holds in his heart concerning the goodness of God and His willingness to pardon sinners.
By God’s grace, the thief on Christ’s right (our left) offers the last of his wretched life in exchange for a passport to Paradise and Jesus accepts the offer. Today, he is venerated in the Church as St. Dismas, or by the paradoxical name of “The Good Thief.”
Crucifixion by Gaudenzio Ferrari, Church of Santa Maria delle Grazie, Varallo, Italy.
“The conversion of Dismas was a great and astounding miracle. Miracles are by no means common; they are rare and exceptional.” (Life of the Good Thief, Msgr. Guame, Loreto Publications)
U.S. prisons have struggled to lower the number of people being repeatedly sentenced to time behind bars. This is due to the fact that a majority of people released from prison have traditionally been worse off post-release than they were pre-conviction. Miraculously converted inmates defy the statistics. They are the only ones who can initiate a true reform.
It may be hard to believe, but even the State of Texas is calling on the inmates themselves to create volunteer-supported programming and empowering a select few prisoners to facilitate and administer these programs peer-to-peer. By and large, the inmates willing, disciplined, and respected enough to be nominated for these newly created positions are Christians: paradoxical “Good Thieves.”
These men and women are charged with the heavy lifting of prison reform, and over the course of this year, you will be introduced to a few of them in this series entitled, “Profiling the Good Thief.” These converted souls will share stories about the darkness from which they were delivered, the depth of grace into which they have been plunged, the responsibilities with which they have been entrusted, and the way in which they bring the love of Jesus Christ to the most hellish holes of America’s prisons.
Golgotha is hallowed ground, fertile ground. It is the perfect place for the rebirth of a man born blind. Jesus used his spittle once to make a healing balm.
At the death of Lazarus, His tears mingled with the sands of Bethany, setting the stage for resurrection.
In the garden, the pit-pat of his dropping sweat summoned angels to strengthen him for his trial.
On Calvary, the spilling of his blood brought salvation to the nations of man. Man, who is merely a breath, formed from a bulb of soft clay.
*Marcellus Roberts is a Catholic Texas prison inmate and Prison Oblate of St. Benedict’s Abbey, Atchison, Kansas,
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