GRACE ... pure and simple

The scene ...
Skull Hill outside Jerusalem some 2,000 years ago.
Another multiple execution by the Roman invaders favourite method has occurred.
Crucifixion in public. On a hill top, for everyone to see

Three men have been nailed to rough wooden crosses.
The one in the middle is quiet. 
The other 2 are criminals who according to local law were found worthy of capital punishment.  Their unrecorded crimes could be murder, larceny or just opposition to the Roman occupation. They both curse their taunting guards, damning their lot in life, never admitting their guilt, while blaming others for their crimes.
They are both pleading for sweet death, which is agonizingly slow in coming.
The 2 criminals read the words written on the board nailed over the head of the middle man, and listen to his accusers challenging him to repeat a further miracle to those that he had already performed, they turn to him and beg him to free them of their ordeal - He is their last faint hope.
When there is no response, one criminal empties his volatile hatred on him.
To this man all is lost and hopeless; his time has run out, he gives full vent to his anger and frustration.

But the other man has a strange change in attitude.
He is alert enough to realise that the middle man shows no hatred for his tormentors. Instead he seems to be a just man who even prays for his executioners.
Either he really is the Son of God, or he must be delirious, for who otherwise would pray for such tormentors? Like a drowning man, he clutches at a straw, and makes a pathetic last request.

There is no time to discuss deism, agnosticism, atheism, eternal security, predestination, or pre and post-millenialism.
There is only time for one short and simple request - to implore......
"Lord, remember me, when You come into Your Kingdom”.

Listen -- he is asking for mercy in the next world, not this one!
Somehow, he has sensed who this middle man really is and his power even at such an hour.

The middle man rallies.
With blood oozing from the sides of his mouth, with vision dimmed by the blood dripping from a mock crown of thorns, his back raw from the flogging, He raises His face and replies “Today you shall be with me in Paradise"
We shall never know what passed through the mind of that convict when he heard those words, but his soul must have leapt within his tortured body.
Perhaps they were the first positive words that he had heard in his entire life.

As he died in terrible agony, his spirit was instantly transported into the presence of an all-loving Father God, ushered in by the middle man whose name was Jesus.
The pardoned criminal would never take communion, or be confirmed, or be baptised.
He would never fast, attend a church, or sing a hymn. He would never kiss an icon, take a pilgrimage, sing in a choir, practice Lent, or have oil on his forehead.
He would never light a candle, learn a scripture verse, attend a prayer meeting, or sit in a Bible Class. He never had an opportunity to discover his talents, gifts or potential, nor to quote the Lord's Prayer or the Apostles Creed.
He never tithed or witnessed to a person, never once heard a sermon, and never even got a Christian funeral.  By many people’s standards, the man should never have entered Paradise, because he had no right to it, he had no opportunity to perform any good works at all, not even one. 
But, regardless of what any person may think, that criminal went straight to Paradise because he simply asked for mercy, of the right person.
And from Jesus, the matchless Son of God, he received - unimagined, unearned, undeserved, unexpected, bounteous and eternal mercy.

G R A C E... The undeserved favour of Almighty God
Freely bestowed on the undeserving, on the simple condition of Faith and asking.

For by Grace are you saved through Faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of GOD, not of works, least any man should boast.....  
Ephesians 2:8, 9

Taste and see likewise

Paul ...  the ministry which I received from the Lord Jesus, to testify to the gospel of the grace of God. Acts 20:24

the God of all grace, who has called you to his eternal glory in Christ, will himself restore, confirm, strengthen, and establish you.   To him be the dominion forever and ever. Amen.                                                        1 Peter 5 : 10

acknowledgement to Paul C Andreas  in Alliance Witness   (and apologies for modifications)