The Thief on the Cross

Much of the world will take time to celebrate Easter and the resurrection of Jesus Sunday, March 31. When Jesus was crucified on the Friday before the resurrection, he was not alone; two other men hung next to him. One of them is commonly called “The Thief on the Cross,” and I’d like to share his story.

I was at a banquet in Michigan when the speaker, Josh McDowell, a famous Christian author, spoke for the first time publicly about the sexual abuse he had suffered between the ages of 7 and 12. The abuser was his father, a wicked and brutal drunk, he said. When he was a teen, if his father was...