John 19:18 There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side, with Jesus between them.

Jesus had been sentenced to death by crucifixion on Golgotha. His cross is between two others, both of whom were thieves and criminals, and in this final moment of life, they have become his only companions - "numbered with the transgressors," as Isaiah said. Their sin becomes his. This is the scandal of the cross.

We may wrongly protect against the depth of this scandal, perhaps seeking to excuse ourselves as the transgressors that we are. But such pretense no longer remains concealed on Christ's cross. Indeed, what is revealed here is the deep truth of our sin, which he has claimed as his own. The veneer of our own righteousness is stripped from us, depriving us of any smooth surfaces we may have sought to keep in order to preserve a good standing or reputation in the world. Christ's cross is not polished. It bears all our painful coarseness and splinters. It exposes us for the sinful people we really are.

But Christ's cross reveals so much more. He is not ashamed to suffer and die in the midst of our own scandalous life and death. He reveals that he chooses to regard us, transgressors that we are, as his companions and friends. And here on the cross, all of us transgressors are made righteous through him in his loving outstretched arms. By his righteousness, we are healed

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