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Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

What was your best Thanksgiving ever? I admit that my Thanksgiving memories are fairly well mixed because what happens from year to year is so similar. It’s hard to distinguish one from another. That’s part of what makes celebrating Thanksgiving so special for so many people: the fact that we repeat what we did last year and the years before that. After all, how would most react to the suggestion that this year we should eat burgers?

We don’t normally think of Good Friday as a day of thanksgiving, even though it is called Good. It’s a somber day on which we recall the suffering and pain that our Savior, Jesus, endured to make perfect payment for the sins of the world. Good Friday is the day that Jesus cried out in terrible spiritual agony, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). It doesn’t seem appropriate to consider it a day of thanksgiving.

And yet that’s what Good Friday was in heaven: Thanksgiving Day! And why? Because on that day, a sinner repented. It was one of the men hanging there with Jesus, to be exact. What did repentance mean? Not that this man covered his head with ashes and walked around with a burlap sack on. No, true repentance means rending our hearts, not our clothes. It means acknowledging our complete brokenness before God—and the sin that results from our nature—but then seeing that in Jesus we have perfect forgiveness and salvation for time and eternity.

This man’s repentance was simply and beautifully expressed with a few words: “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” Lovely repentance. And what happened in heaven? Thanksgiving broke out, just as Jesus once promised, “I tell you that in the same way there will be more rejoicing in heaven over one sinner who repents than over ninety-nine righteous persons who do not need to repent” (Luke 15:7).

At least for that one sinner, it was the best Thanksgiving ever because of what it meant that day and what it will mean for him for all eternity. It won’t be about memories and traditions that eventually fade. It means life everlasting!

Dear Jesus, thank you for suffering what you did on that Friday we call good. Amen.

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All Scripture quotations, unless otherwise indicated, are taken from the Holy Bible, New International Version®, NIV®. Copyright ©1973, 1978, 1984, 2011 by Biblica, Inc. ™ Used by permission of Zondervan. All rights reserved worldwide.