The next words from the cross we will consider is the prayer recorded in Luke 23:54: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
The ‘them’ of this prayer includes those who were actively involved in the death of Jesus: Caiaphas, the High Priest, Pontius Pilate, the Roman governor, the soldiers ‘just doing their job’… but it also includes Judas the betrayer, the eleven disciples who deserted Jesus and fled… and all mankind, whose sins were the reason Jesus had to die at all. I too need to be included in Jesus’s prayer for forgiveness. We all do.
Forgiveness had been a key theme of the teaching of Jesus throughout His lifetime (see Matt 6:12, 14-15, Matt 18:21-35, Luke 7:36-50.) It is fitting that it remained relevant and was practised even during the agony of crucifixion. Forgiveness and justice may seem at odds with each other at times. We often say we want justice rather than forgiveness when we have been wronged, but justice is not the last word. Forgiveness is the last word, and as we pray for forgiveness as Jesus did, we ‘train our spirits in compassion, not revenge; in understanding, not irritation; in acceptance of a brother or sister sinner, not rejection.’ (Eugene Peterson, ‘The Word Made Flesh’, P 247)
Forgiveness is alien to our human nature. We hold on to grudges; we remember wrongs done to us; we stew in bitterness and resentment. But forgiveness, another facet of God’s grace and generosity, unlocks the door and lets us out of the oven. Jesus knew that it was God’s plan for Him to suffer and die, for only through that agony could the world be saved. He could see beyond the human scheming and plotting to God’s purposes being worked out in His life. When we realise that no weapon forged against us can prevail (Is 54:17), when we understand that God’s purposes are often worked out through suffering and pain but that even what men mean for evil can be turned to good by God (Gen 50:20, Rom 8:28), we find that we can forgive. When we withhold forgiveness, we feel that we are punishing the wrongdoer, but actually, we are the ones who become enslaved by our wrong attitudes and broken by our disobedience. Only as we forgive can we enter the wide open spaces God has provided for us. Only as we are forgiven for all the wrong we have ever done can we know joy and lightness of spirit.