The gospels are overflowing (!) with metaphors and narrative segments that flip expectations. The gospel of John, for example, makes explicit, what is still pretty implicit in the synoptic gospels, that Jesus is enthroned as king *on the cross*—i.e., when he is most humiliated. And there are a jillion other examples of this. But here is one more (even if I need to qualify this with an "it seems to me"): "Then [the 'penitent thief' on the cross beside him] said, ‘Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.’ [Jesus] replied, ‘Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.’" The point here, it seems to me, is not that the thief will travel with Jesus on that calendar date to heaven, reaching that land before midnight (or sundown, or whatever). The point is that even this bloody day in which Jesus and the ones alongside him are brutally executed in abject humiliation, even this day will be redeemed, will be gathered together in God's glory, will be glorified, on the day of resurrection, when the mutilated body of Jesus shines with the unbroken life of God.