We don’t know anything about the life of the man on the cross next to Jesus that would give us a clear picture of him. We know he was a criminal bound for execution, and that’s about it. But perhaps we can read between the lines a little. He was not like the other criminal being executed that day. The other prisoner was callous, hardened by life, and merciless. He joined the Roman soldiers in taunting Jesus.

They say that when you know you are in your last hours of life even the most heartless among us begin to wonder, Is this all? Was my life for nothing? Is there really a God? These somber, penitent thoughts seemed far removed from the soul of one so close to death. The prisoner suspended on the other side of Christ was outraged. “Have you no fear of God? . . . We deserve this, but not him—he did nothing to deserve this” (Luke 23:40–41 MSG).

How did he know that Jesus was innocent? Perhaps he had been part of the crowd one day and listened as Jesus talked. He may have sat on a hillside and been fed from a child’s lunch through the hands of this most unusual man. If he was there, if he sensed that this man was different than any he had ever heard before, why did he end up being crucified beside him? He may have been arrested for a crime he had committed earlier and so for him, the truth came too late. Or perhaps he listened to Jesus offer hope and healing and for a moment began to believe that he could live a better life, but as he lay in bed at night he thought himself a fool to believe he could change his ways now. He had made too many poor choices, walked through too many wrong doors, and now life as it inevitably does had caught up with him.

But whatever his thoughts were, he was not going to let a common criminal berate the innocent man hanging between them. He turned his face toward the cross that held Jesus up for all to mock, and he made his last request on this earth, “Jesus, remember me when you enter your kingdom” (Luke 23:42 MSG). Whatever wrong choices this man had made in life, with his final breaths he made the only choice that eternally matters. He saw beyond another prisoner being executed to Messiah, King of kings. He asked for the grace that would be eternal. Jesus heard not just his words but his heart and answered his cry: “Today you will join me in paradise” (v. 43 MSG).

The word Jesus used for Paradise in this verse is the same word used to describe the Garden of Eden. When you reflect on the grace offered to this man in the last hours of his life, it is remarkable. Jesus tells him that the life once tasted by Adam and Eve will be his as well. His past may be filled with the fruit of the Fall, but his future will be the marriage feast of the Lamb.

When we speak of grace, we define it as unmerited favor; and yet so often we feel as if somehow we should measure up to this gift. In the life of the man on the third cross, grace becomes abundantly clear. There is not one thing he can do now to live a life worthy of the call other than open his heart to the love of God. There is not one deed he can do as a last minute, “Thank you!” All he can do is accept Jesus’ gift. That is grace.

For some of us, grace is a disturbing gift. It’s disturbing because it is no respecter of persons. Imagine that the man on the third cross had a brother. This brother lived a life of total devotion to God; he sacrificed his heart and his life and his money to honor God in every way he knew possible. His path finally led him to the foot of the cross, where he recognized the Lamb of God and called out for mercy. The grace that would be extended to him would be the same as to the brother who had wasted his life. “That doesn’t seem fair,” you might say. I would agree with you— it’s not fair; it’s grace.

Jesus told a story in Matthew 20:1–16 to illustrate how hard this can be for the human heart to make peace with. All of Jesus’ parables began with elements that would be familiar to his audience, but they often took a disturbing turn.

He asked the crowd to imagine a man going out in the first light of day to hire workers for his fields. A normal day then was twelve hours counting breaks, usually beginning at about 6 a.m. The man told those he hired that he would pay them a denarius, which was the going rate for a day worker or soldier. At 9 a.m., he went out and hired a few more hands and also at noon. In the last hour of the working day, at 5 p.m., he saw some men standing around in the marketplace doing nothing. When he asked them why, they told him that no one had hired them all day, so he put them to work for that last hour. Then he asked his foreman to pay all the day laborers. It would have been customary to pay the ones who had worked longest, but the foreman had been instructed to pay those last in before the others.

This sets up the whole point of Jesus’ story. If those who worked longest had been paid first, they could have taken their pay and left, but that would have negated the lesson on grace. When the workers who had been there all day saw that the men who had only worked an hour were paid a denarius, I’m sure they were thrilled. If these guys got that much for an hour, can you imagine how much we’ll get!

There were high-fives all over the field until those who had worked all day received their pay. It was exactly the same amount as those who had worked for only sixty minutes. They were furious. The landowner told them that he paid them exactly what he told them he would. He had not shortchanged them in any way. He asked, “Don’t I have the right to do what I want with my own money? Or are you envious because I am generous?” (v. 15 NIV).

The grace of God is not about what seems fair to us. Heaven’s eternal economy of grace is all about God’s heart, not our hard work or good behavior.

Perhaps there is someone new in your circle, and you struggle a little with the path that has led this person to the freedom she now enjoys. Trust God’s heart and celebrate with him the gift of eternal grace.