Pastor Al preached Sunday about the thief next to Jesus on the crosses there outside Jerusalem 2000 years ago. We've read that story a hundred times, more probably, but this time it really stuck with me. This man enters the Gospel story for only 6 hours or so. But in that short time, he goes from reviling Jesus, hateful, insulting, crowd- pressured, resentful, scornful . . . to a changed man who recognizes Jesus for who he is, expresses faith, and heads to Paradise. All of that change occurs while his hands and feet are immobilized and his body is physiologically failing. No clearer picture of how helpless we are to effect change. No clearer picture that God's power can work in the most unlikely of circumstances. Something very real but very hidden occurs between two near-corpses, something that changes this man's eternal destiny.We are not exactly nailed, but in some ways trapped in suburbia far