The account of the two criminals crucified alongside Jesus Christ centers on a striking contrast, and within it emerges a clear pattern of what genuine repentance requires, beginning with the admission of guilt. Both men, properly understood as violent robbers or insurrectionists rather than mere petty thieves, had been justly condemned for their crimes. Yet one persisted in a constant stream of abuse against Jesus, mocking Him and demanding He save Himself and them if He were truly the Messiah. The other, evidently a man who saw himself as fighting for his nation's freedom rather than as thoroughly wicked, rebuked and silenced his companion, challenging him to consider how he wished to spend his final breaths before facing his Maker. This second robber's response models the first essential step of repentance: he openly admitted his guilt rather than protesting innocence, acknowledging that he and his companion were receiving exactly what their crimes deserved. This confession, made audibly in Jesus' hearing, parallels the principle found in I John 1:9, that confessing sin to God is the necessary starting point for forgiveness. Rather than claiming innocence, as most people instinctively do when caught, he honestly owned his wrongdoing. Beyond admitting his own guilt, the robber went further and declared Jesus' innocence, stating that this Man had done nothing amiss or improper. How he arrived at this recognition remains uncertain, but it is possible he had encountered Jesus' teaching previously or pieced together the truth through the suffering and clarity that crucifixion brought. His subsequent request, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your Kingdom," reveals that he understood Jesus' Kingdom as a literal, future reality beyond the present death, a level of insight into Christ's doctrine that even surpassed what the disciples had yet grasped. Notably, he did not ask for forgiveness or salvation outright; he simply asked to be remembered when that Kingdom arrived. Jesus' reply affirmed that the robber had understood correctly: recognizing his own sinfulness, acknowledging Christ's sinlessness, and desiring to be with Him were the proper foundations for entering the Kingdom. This admission of guilt, paired with humility and repentance, forms the pattern Jesus commends, provided the robber continued in that same attitude. The famous phrase "today you will be with Me in Paradise" must be understood correctly, since Jesus Himself was in the tomb that day, not in paradise, and the placement of "today" grammatically modifies "I say" rather than "you will be." Paradise, drawn from the imagery of Eden, signifies a condition free from sin and corruption, ultimately fulfilled in God's Kingdom on earth rather than an immediate ascent to heaven. This is reinforced by Hebrews 11:37-40, which shows that even the greatest heroes of faith have not yet been made perfect, awaiting resurrection together with all believers, confirming that this robber likewise awaits that same future fulfillment rather than an immediate reward, his admission of guilt marking only the beginning of that process.

Guilt, like bitterness and resentment, can be psychologically corrosive. It can eat a person up from the inside. Many people down through history have come to realize that. Aldous Huxley said, Chronic remorse, as all the moralists are agreed, is a most undesirable sentiment. The Roman playwright Plautus said, Nothing is more wretched than the mind of a man conscious of guilt. Clinical psychologist Dr. Kenneth Wapnick said, Guilt is the sum total of all the negative feelings we have ever had about ourselves. And author Gretchen Rubin wrote, Negative emotions like loneliness, envy, and guilt have an important role to play in a happy life. They're big flashing signs that something needs to change. It is not only natural for us to feel guilty, but it has an important role to play in our lives as a thermostat on our character and if we are full of guilt, that means something needs to change. We know these things. We are here in God's church at least partly due to guilt. Of course, the main reason why we are a part of God's church is because of God's calling, but He often makes use of guilt to motivate us. He sometimes turns our guilt meter up just a bit, makes us feel really guilty to begin to move us toward change or to seek Him. Let us look at Luke 5. This vignette here in Luke is a little different from what we see in some of the other gospel writers about Jesus' calling of the first four, but it is really interesting what he adds in here because he highlights Peter's guilt. Peter's guilt was pretty deep. Maybe he was feeling guilty for kind of pooh-poohing the idea that Jesus would know where to catch fish. Maybe it was his tone of voice, but maybe it was a lot more than that. Maybe what Jesus had done in this miracle made him think of how totally unworthy he was and he just felt dirty. He felt sinful. He felt all that guilt come to the surface, and he asked Jesus, his Savior, to leave him because it felt so terrible to have all that guilt come down, pressed down upon him after seeing this miracle. Normally that you would see a great miracle like this, just hundreds of fish in this boat, causing them nearly to sink, and you would be, Oh yeah, that's great. Look at what happened. Not Peter. It was something that stirred in him this feeling of worthlessness that he did not like. He liked it so little that he wanted the cause of that, which he determined to be Jesus' righteousness and His holiness, to leave him so he could go back to being normal, have these normal feelings of self-worth. Standing next to Jesus, he knew he was not an okay guy. He was full of sin, and he felt it to his very bones. Like Peter, we know that we are sinners in need of redemption and forgiveness. We are often full of doubt and unbelief. And that is especially so when we are being called, that we see the grime of our lives, we see how awful we are and how we have been to people and how we have treated God, our very Creator. And that drives us to seek a Savior for the remission of our sins, to pay the penalty in our stead, and remove that guilt that burdens us so much. That is a far better solution than what Peter had. Getting rid of the Savior, telling Him to go away. That was not the right reaction. Guilt is a bad thing. It is a bad thing because it means we have sinned. It means that we have something to be guilty about. We have transgressed God's holy law, which defines what sin is. And by doing so we have incurred the death penalty and so that adds to the burden. Not only have we sinned and done this terrible thing against God and against our fellow men, but we have only death to look forward to because that is what we deserve for sinning. We have been judged guilty of sin against God, against our loved ones, or whoever we have sinned against, and we are guilty of sin against ourselves. We do terrible things to ourselves. We treat ourselves awfully by what we see, what we ingest, what we allow ourselves to do. There are literally thousands of destruc