Artistic depictions of the Crucifixion give us various perspectives. We often look
straight on as if from a viewpoint suspended in the air somewhere in front ofJesus as He hangs there. Other paintings have us looking up at Jesus from the point of view of a Roman soldier or one of the grieving women. Salvador Dali’s “Christ of St. John of the Cross,” famously has us look down as if from God’s perspective viewing the top of the cross and Jesus’ bowed head.
With regard to our text this week, Luke 23:32-43, about the thieves hung alongside Jesus, there are only a couple of perspectives seen in Christian art. 
Many, many paintings, etc. show us the three crosses in a line, with the two criminals flanking Jesus. An occasional painting, like this one from Titian, focus in on the “good” thief and invite us into his conversation with Jesus. But no one ever lets us view the scene through one of the thieves own eyes, looking at Jesus sideways, across the beam of his own cross.
That unpainted perspective, the thief’s-eye view of Jesus, might help us toward the spiritual perspective for which this text almost cries out. The human race, you and I, are hanging there on either side of Jesus. The one great question is which side we are on. Will we, with the one thief, regard Jesus as no different from ourselves, an unfortunate person caught up in the same misery which we all at sometime suffer, with no hope or way out? Or will we look from the other side and see, yes, another suffering human being like ourselves, but also a Man who can offer grace and hope to those around Him? That second perspective is the way I’d like to see the Cross.