The Testimony of the Thief

I saw Him preaching one day
He said He had come for the lost
He said He would bring new life
And some cold, bitter part of me broke
I was flooded
Overcome
For a moment
Everything that had been me for as long as I could remember
Was delightfully destroyed
By this Man of Galilee

Then I ran
I pulled back
In hate
And fear
And pride
I fled to dark corners
To darker deeds
To anything that could drown out
That terrible light
I smothered its memory
In sins and distractions of every kind
Until they lead me to my execution

He was there too
The One I had been so desperate to escape
Beaten and brutalized
As if my every hateful thought against Him
Had been dealt to His body
As if after every theft
I had carried an ounce of His flesh away
In addition to all my other prizes

All my other hopes were dashed
All my illusions had crumbled away
So I let the last of my burdens drop
A little too late
And asked
Only that He would remember me
And He said what I had feared to hear
All my life

"You will be with Me in paradise"

There was something in His voice
An agonizing gurgling sound
Which I realized
In the midst of both our torment
Was a laugh

I heard it all
In that one sentence
In that painful laugh
I heard how He had watched me
How He had made me
How I had broken His heart
How if He had not been so contorted
Had His body not been so stretched and ripped
He would have grinned and giggled
Would have embraced me
And lifted me into the air
I heard how He would love me forever
And I would never be apart from Him ever again