This past Good Friday, I was privileged to give one of the meditations on
the seven last words of Christ. Anna has encouraged me to post my meditation
here, and so I have. Rich Easter blessings to all! Rickey
Father, Forgive…: First of the 7 Last Words of Christ
Luke 23:34 (ESV): 34 Jesus said, “Father,
forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
On the one hand it’s no
surprise that Jesus’s first words on the cross were of forgiveness. Forgiveness
is why he came; he was fulfilling his mission. But it’s also important that we
don’t take these words of his for granted. Instead, it is vital that we are
mindful of them and that we meditate on them in an ongoing way—that we engage
again and again how remarkable it is that he could be treated so unjustly, so
brutally, and yet his first words on the cross were to ask his Father to
forgive.
In meditating on these
words of his and their significance, our first response should be for us to
receive and appropriate for ourselves the forgiveness that Jesus prayed for and
that he accomplished for us on the cross. From the perspective of eternity, our
sins helped put him on that cross. He was dying for the sins of all. The
forgiveness he longed for is a complete healing of the human condition in its
alienation and separation from God. It is the bridging of the abyss between us
and God caused by sin. The forgiveness achieved by Jesus on the cross makes it
possible for us now to be united with God, to
participate in God’s nature, as it says in I Peter. To have, as John 17 says,
the Son and the Father live in us and us in them. It’s incredible, a glorious
heritage, and his words inaugurate it. The resurrection fulfills it. And it is
imperative that we make it our primary goal to seek to actualize God’s
forgiveness, his love, his embrace in our lives.
We must recognize again
and again that it is not our sin but God’s love that is paramount. Forgiveness
is primarily about relationship. It is not primarily
about having one’s account wiped clean or moving from the debit side of the
ledger to the credit side. Instead forgiveness involves the removal of obstacles
that lie in the way of intimate union with God and others. It is the invitation
and the enablement to live in a new relationship with the one who forgives. So
to be forgiven means that we can no longer live in the same way.
We have a second
responsibility in response to these words of the Lord: we are to forgive others
as he forgives. In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught us to forgive like he would
on the cross. The line we say is, forgive us as we also forgive others. So much
in human life depends on forgiveness, and so much could be healed in our world
if the forgiveness made possible by Jesus were more and more practiced in our
lives. Forgiveness makes possible healing, reconciliation, and renewal, whether
in friendships, families, churches, or nations.
Like Jesus on the cross
then, we must pray for our enemies. He is our model and our example. If he
could do it on the cross, surely we can do it in our circumstances. Our
forgiveness of others is key to our spiritual growth. Some spiritual writers
consider praying for our enemies as the main marker of deep and mature
Christian spirituality.
It’s not easy, as we all
know well. We are all wounded people, whether we appear so to others or not.
Who wounds us? So often it’s those we love and those who love us. And we wound
them. This is why long-term in-depth relationships cannot be sustained without
forgiveness. To truly forgive others, to forgive from the heart is very
difficult—it is precisely our hearts that have been wounded. In fact, it is
impossible for us, but nothing impossible for God, and he is seeking to work in
us and through us.
To pray is to be
intimate before God and with God. To bring those who have frustrated us, hurt,
or even betrayed us into our prayer time then is to be vulnerable yet again to
these frustrations, hurts, and betrayals. But it is also to be cleansed,
comforted, strengthened, and even healed in regard them. And more important, much
more important, it is to become more and more like Jesus, to become
more and more closely united with him. And for his life to be more and more
fully expressed through us. We unite with him in accepting and seeking healing
of the sinfulness of the world.
Paul says in Colossians
1 that our sufferings help fulfill the ministry of Jesus. In praying for our
enemies, our hearts join with his in the work of redemption. To hear them
again, his words were, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”
In honoring these words of Jesus for forgiveness, in receiving them for
ourselves, in practicing them toward others, we become a true community of
the Spirit, and a true community of the Spirit is always a community of
forgiveness.
