Wednesday, March 25, 2026

It is the 25th of March 2026. Welcome to the Christian History Almanac, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org; I’m Dan van Voorhis.

Oh boy, it’s the 25th of March. It is one of those historical dates that, regardless of how many seasons we go through, we will always circle back around to similar events on what was once considered one of the days of the year on which to remember symbolic beginnings. March 25th was the original January 1st- or “New Year's Day”. When “little Dennis”- Dinoysius Exiguus came up with the modern Christian calendar with AD and BC, it was in the 600s, and from then until the 1700s, for many (with Gregorian Calendar reform), it was the first day of the year. It would thus be one of the four quarterly days for paying rents and making sure your accounts were settled. In England, these quarterly days begin with March 25th as “Lady Day”- the “lady” in question is the Virgin Mary, and this is because it was held as the day of the Annunciation, when the Archangel announces the miraculous birth of Jesus. This does two important things- it grounds the birth of Jesus 9 months later in December, and according to Jewish tradition, it places the divine conception of Christ on the same day of the creation of the universe, the same day Isaac was going to be sacrificed by Abraham, and the same day the Jewish people walked through the Red Sea. It’s a date for momentous events in salvation history. And according to Jewish tradition, if it was the day on which Jesus was conceived, it would also be the day on which he died. Note: this is all for confessional reasons- not necessarily calendar reasons. We can’t know the date for certain, but we place it on the calendar to remember that it was an event that took place in space and time.

And if today, the 25th of March, is the day originally slated for the death of Jesus, then it means today would also be the day on the calendar to recognize what we might call “the first canonized saint,”- or at least the first person we can say with certainty was with Jesus in paradise on that first day. Here’s the only Biblical text we have, from Luke 23: 40 But the other criminal rebuked him. “Don’t you fear God,” he said, “since you are under the same sentence? 41 We are punished justly, for we are getting what our deeds deserve. But this man has done nothing wrong.”

42 Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.”

43 Jesus answered him, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in paradise.”

In the Latin West, he was given the name Dismas and placed on the right of Christ as opposed to “Gestas,” the “other criminal”. There are a few later apocryphal texts- like the Gospel of Nicodemus and the Narrative of Joseph of Arimathea that give him his name and borrow from other texts, like the “Rebellion of Dimas,” an Arabic text where he meets the Holy Family on their flight into Egypt. Dimas (or Dismas, you might see him called Titus or Rakh) notices something different about this family and decides to bribe the other thieves into letting this family go. In other stories, he then voluntarily joins Jesus in death as part of his understanding of who Jesus is. These stories seem to want to tie together loose stories and legends, but also give cover to what might be the most radical of all salvation stories in the Gospels. As the famed Catholic TV priest Fulton Sheen remarked:

“A dying man asked a dying man for eternal life; a man without possessions asked a poor man for a Kingdom; a thief at the door of death asked to die like a thief and steal Paradise.”

Some have said maybe he was baptized by John? Maybe being on the right side of the Lord, he would have been covered by the water and blood flowing from his side? Others want to make his apocryphal earlier “good works” the basis for Jesus saying what he did. Or, this other event on this momentous date- the making of the “first saint” Dismas invites us to ponder the depth of mercy for even this sinner. The patron saint of hardened criminals, for whom even the promise of last-minute penitence is held out by the mercy of our crucified savior.

Today, there are a number of prison chapels and prison ministries that have taken the name of Dismas to minister to those for whom even Jesus was invited at their last breath. Check out the Church of St. Dismas, built by inmates at the facility at Dannemora in New York State.

The Last word for today comes from the daily lectionary and a good text for the Annunciation- from Isaiah 7:

10 Again the Lord spoke to Ahaz, 11 “Ask the Lord your God for a sign, whether in the deepest depths or in the highest heights.”

12 But Ahaz said, “I will not ask; I will not put the Lord to the test.”

13 Then Isaiah said, “Hear now, you house of David! Is it not enough to try the patience of humans? Will you try the patience of my God also? 14 Therefore the Lord himself will give you a sign: The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and will call him Immanuel.

This has been the Christian History Almanac for the 25th of March 2026, brought to you by 1517 at 1517.org.

The show is produced by a man who would be happy to answer the question- “then why didn’t they call the baby Immanuel?”- he is Christopher Gillespie.

The show is written and read by a man back in the studios, feeling a little daunted by drywall repair, I’m the not-so-handy Dan van Voorhis.

You can catch us here every day- and remember that the rumors of grace, forgiveness, and the redemption of all things are true…. Everything is going to be ok.