thief

After years of wandering, Clint Dennis had come to that point in his life when he knew he had been missing something important. And for months he had felt he could find what that something was in that church on the hillside in North Phoenix.

He arrived at Phoenix First Assembly of God on an unusual day. 

The choir room was filled with members putting on long robes, tying ropes around their waists, wrapping headdresses around their head. "Come be part of the mob," a stranger told him.

It was Palm Sunday and the church was reenacting the Crucifixion in costume. Like others in the congregation, he would be part of the crowd that yelled, "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" Hesitantly he agreed.

Then another stranger hurried up to him. "The man who was supposed to play one of the thieves on the cross didn't show up," he said. "Would you take his place?"

Again he agreed and was shown to the cross where he would look on as Christ died. Just then, though, something about Clint's manner caught a member's eye. He turned to Clint and asked, "Have you ever asked Jesus to forgive your sins?"

"No," Clint replied softly, "but that's why I came here."  There beneath the cross, they prayed, and Clint asked Jesus to come into his heart. His life was transformed.

What the church didn't know then was that Clint had been in prison for ten years. Even after his release he had gone on stealing cars and trucks until he knew he had been missing something in life. He was a real thief, but at last he was welcomed into God's kingdom by the same Jesus who welcomed another thief two thousand years ago.

-jo hart