Perhaps the book of lamentation is not the book you normally turn to, to find words of encouragement, but there are tremendous encouragements to be found in it, listen what the profits says there, in the third chapter, he says this I recall to my mind, and he's talking about the time of his own affliction, the time when he is going through it, the time when nobody loves him, the time when everybody's against him, when he's suffering and he's in pain the time when life is full of bitterness for him, he says this I recall to my mind, therefore I have hope, the lords loving kindness indeed never ceases for his compassion's never fail  and here Jesus is demonstrating that, he's compassion's never fail, he's loving kindnesses they never cease, here in his dying hour Jesus is showing that in reaching out to this man  but as we said the other week the, the deepest, the most important significance of what Jesus did then, of what Jesus said then, its not just of the historical account, but that he is able and willing to say and to do exactly the same today in your experience and in mine, what he did for that man on the cross he's ready and willing to do for every one of us  the incident may of happened nineteen hundred years ago, but there's the old hymn, the verse reminds us, picks out that very story and it says the dying thief rejoiced to see that fountain in his day and there may I, though via us he wash all my sins away, and that verse from William Cowper's hymn, it takes up that great historical event, that tremendous happening in that man's life and he links it with a present and it applies it to you and to me and says this can be our experience as well.