I came across a message in my files. For Holy Week, I’ll share this devotion that my father preached in the spring of 1998. It is fitting for a Good Friday observance, and for our contemplation at any time of year.
Christ’s words of forgiveness
by Donald C. Sellnow
Holy Week is the time of year we go up to Jerusalem with Jesus. For him, it was a journey to the cross. For us, it is a spiritual journey that reminds us how completely our Lord was willing to give himself for us. It is a demonstration of God‘s amazing grace.
We have made this journey to Jerusalem often over the years, as we have listened to the Passion history and found joy and strength in the gospel of our Lord. It is a journey we will want to make again and again so long as God gives us the opportunity to do so.
When we go to Calvary, to stand in spirit beneath the cross of Christ, we listen to our suffering Savior speak. He spoke seven times from the cross. His words tell us what his mission there was all about. His words give us guidance, comfort, and hope for our journey through this life to the life that never ends. The first words spoken by Jesus from the cross were words of forgiveness: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).
It had been a long hard night for Jesus, from his arrest in the Garden of Gethsemane to his trials before the Sanhedrin and Pontius Pilate. Now it was Friday morning and time for the execution of the death sentence imposed upon him. The Romans had not invented crucifixion, but they had perfected it as the cruelest and most hideous punishment they could devise. It was never inflicted on Roman citizens, but was reserved for slaves, pirates, and political or religious rebels—whose deaths were to be a public warning to others. On that Friday morning, the Son of God incarnate was crucified at the place called “The Skull” (Golgotha in Aramaic, Calvaria in Latin). Roman soldiers nailed his hands and feet to wooden beams and then lifted him up to hang him there on that cross, between two criminals, until he was dead, while they gambled for his clothes.
How did Jesus respond to what was done to him? We might expect someone in his situation to scream in anger, to curse his executioners, to ask God to rain down punishment on them. Who in the world would blame Jesus if he wanted revenge? Who would say that he wasn’t justified if he asked God to damn his abusers to hell? After all, he was innocent. He had been framed, falsely accused. He had been beaten, bruised, crowned with thorns and crucified—though he didn’t deserve any of it. Why not lash out at those who had done all of this to him? Why not vent his rage at them?
But wonder of wonders, the first words that Jesus spoke from the cross were not words of anger and revenge, but of love and pardon. “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” And let’s be sure that we know who Jesus means by “them.” “Them,” of course, means the soldiers who hammered spikes through his flesh to affix him to the cross. But it also includes the men higher up, such as Pilate and Herod and Jewish leaders and judges who condemned him. Peter, the apostle, later told his countrymen that they had crucified Christ, as they had clamored for his execution. “This man, handed over to you according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God, you crucified and killed” (Acts 2:23). “You rejected the holy and righteous one …. You killed the author of life” (Acts 1:15). Jesus’ prayer, “Father, forgive them,” includes all of them—all who in any way brought the Messiah to the cross. And the Savior’s prayer includes also you and me. For what, after all, was it that laid the Lamb of God upon the altar of the cross? What was it that moved him to endure sufferings and crucifixion? It was the enormity of sin that we in this world had fallen into. Each of us says, along with the hymnist: “Ah, I also, and my sin wrought your deep affliction. This indeed the cause has been of your crucifixion.”*
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Thus Jesus prayed for forgiveness for the soldiers who were carrying out orders, but didn’t know that they were crucifying the Lord of glory. Thus Jesus prayed for the people and their rulers who did not recognize him as the promised Messiah. Thus Jesus prayed for us, who also were by nature enemies of God and of Christ and his Spirit.
Not only do we see Jesus praying for our forgiveness, we also see him achieving our forgiveness, redeeming us by his sacrifice. We don’t have to wonder whether there are sins and offenses that remain on our record and separate us from God. Christ took upon himself every sin every one of us has committed. Hanging on the cross that day, he was enduring all judgment for the sins of all the world. He was taking our place. He was suffering for us, dying for us. “Upon him was the punishment that made us whole, and by his bruises we are healed” (Isaiah 53:5).
What a great exchange we see taking place there at the cross! Jesus took on all of our infirmities, all of our weaknesses, all of our sins … and we got all the good, all the blessings, all the grace that brought us forgiveness, life, and salvation. One writer put it well when he said, “Jesus suffered, that we might be comforted. He was rejected that we might be accepted. He was separated from the Father, that we might be forever with him. He wore the shame of our sin and suffered the death of the cross that we might be rid of sin and shame forever. His garments were taken from him that we might wear the robe of his righteousness.”
Jesus died that we might live. And so we say, “Thousand, thousand thanks shall be, dearest Jesus, unto thee!”**
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“Father, forgive them.” The Savior who spoke those words wants us to speak such words too. We find that hard to do. Our sinful nature rebels at the thought of forgiving others. We want to take revenge. It seems more natural to nurse a grudge, to keep score of someone else’s faults, to rub it in, to be spiteful, to find a way to get even. In the home, on the job, in our private and professional lives, in our immediate family and in the larger family of church and community, it isn’t easy for us to pray, “Father, forgive them.” We want the Father to forgive us our trespasses, but we struggle to forgive those who trespass against us.
Yet though forgiving isn’t easy, it is something we can do, through Christ. When we look at Christ on the cross, we see our sins and all of their consequences, and we know in faith that Jesus covered our sins with his holy, precious blood, and with his innocent suffering and death. In turn, the love of Christ compels us to be forgiving. From now on, therefore, let us regard no one from a human point of view, because God has reconciled himself to us in Christ. We have been reconciled to God, and through him find reconciliation with one another. (Cf. 2 Corinthians 5:16-21.)
May we daily look to the Savior and his cross for the forgiveness that we need so very much. May we keep on hearing his word and partaking of his sacrament—through which our faith is strengthened, our love grows, and we are enabled to forgive one another, just as God for Christ’s sake has forgiven us.
“Father, forgive them.” Thank God, for this word from the cross—a word that is a continuing comfort and a powerful motivation for us, the forgiven, to forgive.
Prayer:
- Heavenly Father, you have forgiven me all that I have done. Every sinful word, thought, and action is cleansed by the blood of Jesus. So often I pray, as Jesus taught me, “Forgive us our sins, as we forgive those who sin against us”—but forgiving others is not easy. Work within my heart that I may willingly and joyfully forgive others. Forgive my spirit of revenge and help me overcome it. Draw my attention back to the cross of Jesus, that I may learn to forgive as he did. Amen.
*From the hymn Jesu, deine Passion, by Sigismund von Birken (17th century), translated by August Crull.
**From the hymn Jesu, meines Lebens Lebe by Ernst Homburg (17th century), translated by Catherine Winkworth.
Scripture quotations, except where otherwise indicated, are taken from the New Revised Standard Version Updated Edition. Copyright © 2021 National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide.
