During this season of Lent, as we’ve walked slowly through Jesus’s passion, I’ve been reminded how many important scenes show up in this last week of his life. We’ve “freeze-framed” many of those moments in worship, but there are many more.
So little time. So much poignant beauty if only we zoom in on it (as our benediction in this season has invited us to do).
One instance of that is Jesus saying in Luke 23.34, the only gospel to include this scene: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” He’s just been crucified—nailed to a wooden cross and hung between two criminals. And his first words are about forgiveness.
Can you imagine being able to say those words, in that moment? Sit with that for a moment. Could you, in a moment of torture? of agony? of impending, unjustified death?
Put yourself within earshot of Jesus saying them. Maybe it was hard to hear—and you aren’t sure quite whether you heard him right.
Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.
You might have looked over at a person nearby—the soldier you serve with, or that neighbor out there on the hill where you’ve both come to see what in the world is happening. “What did he say?” “I think it was….” “Who could really say…that?”
If you look up this verse in your Bible, it may highlight that there’s some dispute about whether it’s original. The words I quoted are absent from some of the early manuscripts—which means there have been many theories and suppositions about whether a later scribe inserted it, or why some early scribe took it out. The balance of scholarly opinion seems to favor its authenticity.
I can’t help wondering if some of those scholars leaned on the theories that support the inclusion of these words. Maybe they felt—as I do—that the gospel would be diminished without them. That our grasp of Jesus’ love, God’s love, would suffer, if we eliminated this amazing moment from the saga of Jesus’ life, death, and resurrection.
Rather than listening, though, to my many thoughts on this subject, I want to refer you to the image I chose to accompany this Weekly Word. I typed in the keyword “forgiveness” and perused the images that appeared. Many were interesting. This one was, well….
Before I say anything more, please scroll back up and sit with it for a moment. Let it sink in. Look at it as a whole. Then let your eyes move around the whole image. Register its details.
I mean it. Pause right now and do that!
What emotions does this person evoke? Their expression, their movement. Do you feel something when you look at them? Notice what you feel, and where in your body.
I see at the same time a representation of both sides of this forgiveness:
- The one who has reached deep inside to find room for forgiveness in the midst of agony and loss and anger. To let it go. To find something like peace in spite of all that’s happening. Reaching way down to a calm, grounded center that is where God resides.
And:
- The one on the receiving end of that forgiveness. Knowing they’re unworthy. Knowing deep down, as bedrock truth, what they didn’t know the moment before: that there’s no earning this grace. That this thing they’ve heard about—God, and love, and shalom—is real beyond every doubt, and it’s just been poured out on them.
Both being pelted by the relentless, glorious rain of grace and truth. Both pouring out tears that feel bottomless, but won’t be. Both perhaps keeping their eyes shut a moment longer, holding onto this experience, fearing that all will slip back to fierce reality the moment they resurface in their actual time and place.
What if we put ourselves in this frame. When have you been in that first role? Who might God be calling you to forgive, knowing that truth that in some way, at some level, that person didn’t know what they were doing? Can you form those words? Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they were doing.
Forgiveness doesn’t mean there aren’t consequences to what they did. I don’t believe in “forgive and forget.” It may not be safe, or wise, or even possible for you to renew or maintain your relationship with them.
But when you undertake this work of forgiveness, you let them out of the space they’ve been taking up in your spirit. That negative energy that surfaces every time you think of them no longer has to plague you. You may have to forgive, and forgive again. But moving in that direction can feel like grace.
Look at that picture again and wonder if you wouldn’t want to feel that, even in relation to them.
And now find yourself in the second of those roles. Remember that you have been forgiven, even when you haven’t deserved it. Someone said, about what you did, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they did.
At the very least, God has done that, through Jesus Christ. I hope all of us can think of times when someone in our life has done it, too–chosen forgiveness when they could have chosen something else. When they could have kept holding that thing over our head, beating us up, holding us down.
Look at that picture one more time and let yourself feel all that grace, washing over you. Wow.
Thank you, Jesus, for showing us this is your way. For showing us it’s possible. Grace upon grace.
