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Scriptures say that the two revolutionaries who were crucified with Jesus Christ on Mount Calvary on the day known now as Good Friday joined the chief priests, elders, scribes and others in the crowds in taunting, mocking and otherwise verbally abusing Jesus.
When one of the two implored Jesus to "save thyself and us," however, the other rebuked him, saying both of them deserved their punishments but Jesus had done nothing to deserve his.
According to Scriptures, Jesus responded to the one who had defended him, saying, "Today shalt thou be with me in paradise."
Jesus' words -- especially "paradise" -- remain important to consider both for now, the future and looking back over the past 100 years.
Within the mindset of Russian President Vladimir Putin, who remains hellbent on exterminating as many Ukrainians as possible in this most solemn time of the Christian calendar, no "paradise" exists; there is no punishment in the afterlife to fear.
Similarly, during World War II, Germany's Adolf Hitler was determined to rid earth of Jewish people, and his gas chambers, concentration camps and other horrific means of inflicting death claimed the lives of approximately 6 million Jews in German-occupied Europe -- about two-thirds of Europe's Jewish population.
In Hitler's mind there was no morsel of evidence of any concern that life might extend beyond whatever his time on this planet.
Then there was Cambodia in the late 1970s, where Pol Pot, Communist leader of the Khmer Rouge, was responsible for 2 million deaths, many in his Killing Fields, where people were beaten to death with machetes, hammers and bamboo poles.
Shift to the tyrant considered to be the biggest mass murderer in history: Joseph Stalin, of the Soviet Union, who was responsible for the deliberate starving of at least 7.5 million people during the famine of 1930-33, with probably most of the victims Ukrainians. His reign of death might have consisted of as many as 11 million humans.
Those killers made Osama bin Laden's "death chart" of Sept. 11, 2001 -- consisting of between 2,000 and 3,000 victims in this country --seem small by comparison, but horrific nonetheless.
Again, those killers have and had one thing in common. None of them weigh or weighed the possibility of eternal punishment amid their unconscionable rule, and not even something as serious as the messages of Good Friday could cause them to rethink their extinction mentality.
Religions acknowledge free will, but caution against using it as the foundation of bad decisions and bad conduct. Meanwhile, some clergy express the point that those who do not "carry their cross" in this life might carry it in the next one.
Additionally, reminders of the existence of a forgiving God often are a topic of religious service homilies, even at this time of contemplation stemming from Jesus' suffering and death on Calvary.
There are many injustices in this world that ought to be invoking examination of consciences -- in leaders and the so-called common people -- as the world reflects on Jesus' death on the cross to atone for mankind's sinfulness.
As for Vladimir Putin, it remains impossible to make an educated guess about what his eventual fate might be, but many Ukrainians are dying each day as the world watches in horror.
It would be a miracle if Good Friday this year had the power to halt the toll that he continues to wreak.