Looking To The Cross | Day 10 | Luke 23:39-43

Deathbed conversions were a real sticking point for me in my early years as a Christian.

Jeffrey Dahmer, the serial killer convicted of 17 horrific murders in the early 1990s, supposedly became a Christian in jail. His crimes were despicably sadistic, and he was universally despised. It was hard to imagine someone more deserving of hell. Yet it has been documented that Dahmer accepted Christ and was baptized just 6 months before he was beaten to death by a fellow inmate.

I was a new believer with my own list of sins, but while forgiveness for me seemed perfectly reasonable, it was out of line for Jeffrey Dahmer. He had gone too far. How could he live like the devil and at the last minute, switch teams and get the same reward as the “good” people? Good people like… me.

Grace. That’s how. Jeffrey Dahmer didn’t deserve paradise. Neither do I and neither did the thief on the cross… and to his credit, he knew it. 

In Luke 18:10-14, Jesus told a parable about a pharisee and a tax collector praying in the temple. The pharisee listed his acts of righteousness and gave thanks that he was not like the sinful tax collector.  By contrast, the tax collector stood at a distance with eyes downcast, beat his breast and said “God, have mercy on me, a sinner”. It was this man, Jesus says, who went home justified before the Lord. He knew that he needed grace.

As I matured in my faith and felt my own unworthiness, I understood that “there is no one righteous, no not one” (Rom. 3:10) and that all our attempts at righteousness are but “filthy rags” (Isa. 64:6). This is true for the thief on the cross, for Jeffrey Dahmer, and for me. And yet we’ll all be together in paradise, with Jesus and all the saints.