Reading 45
Father, forgive them
The reading
Luke 23:32-46
There were also others, two criminals, led with him to be put to death. When they came to the place that is called The Skull, they crucified him there with the criminals, one on the right and the other on the left. Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they are doing." Dividing his garments among them, they cast lots.
The people stood watching. The rulers with them also scoffed at him, saying, "He saved others. Let him save himself, if this is the Christ of God, his chosen one!" The soldiers also mocked him, coming to him and offering him vinegar, and saying, "If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!" An inscription was also written over him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew: "THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS."
One of the criminals who was hanged insulted him, saying, "If you are the Christ, save yourself and us!" But the other answered, and rebuking him said, "Don't you even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong." He said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when you come into your Kingdom." Jesus said to him, "Assuredly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise."
It was now about the sixth hour, and darkness came over the whole land until the ninth hour. The sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!" Having said this, he breathed his last.
The companions
Psalm 22:1-18 (selected)
My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? Why are you so far from helping me, and from the words of my groaning? My God, I cry in the daytime, but you don't answer; in the night season, and am not silent. But you are holy, you who inhabit the praises of Israel. Our fathers trusted in you. They trusted, and you delivered them. But I am a worm, and no man; a reproach of men, and despised by the people. All those who see me mock me. They insult me with their lips. They shake their heads, saying, "He trusts in the LORD. Let him deliver him. Let him rescue him, since he delights in him." But you brought me out of the womb. You made me trust while at my mother's breasts. Don't be far from me, for trouble is near. For there is no one to help. I am poured out like water. All my bones are out of joint. My heart is like wax; it is melted within me. You have brought me into the dust of death. For dogs have surrounded me. A company of evildoers have enclosed me. They have pierced my hands and feet. I can count all of my bones. They look and stare at me. They divide my garments among them, and cast lots for my clothing.
Isaiah 53:4-12 (selected)
Surely he has borne our sickness, and carried our suffering; yet we considered him plagued, struck by God, and afflicted. But he was pierced for our transgressions. He was crushed for our iniquities. The punishment that brought our peace was on him; and by his wounds we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray. Everyone has turned to his own way; and the LORD has laid on him the iniquity of us all. He was oppressed, yet when he was afflicted he didn't open his mouth. As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so he didn't open his mouth. Although he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his mouth. Yet it pleased the LORD to bruise him. After the suffering of his soul, he will see the light and be satisfied. My righteous servant will justify many by the knowledge of himself; and he will bear their iniquities. Because he poured out his soul to death, and was counted with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors.
A word for the week
Watch what he does with his dying breath, because a person's last words tell you what they were made of, and his tell you everything. They have nailed him to a cross between two criminals. The soldiers who did it are right there, gambling for his clothes at the foot of it. The crowd is watching. The religious leaders are sneering: he saved others, let him save himself. If ever a man had earned the right to curse, to scream, to call down judgment, it is this one, in this hour, innocent and tortured. And what comes out of his mouth is this: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.
Take the full weight of it: he prayed that for the men actively killing him, while they were killing him, before a single one of them had asked for it or shown the slightest regret. This is not forgiveness offered to the repentant. The soldiers had not repented; they were busy dividing his shirt. This is forgiveness poured out on people in the very act of doing the worst thing a person can do, and it is the whole of his teaching made flesh in one sentence. He told us to love our enemies and pray for those who persecute us, and here, with nails through his hands, he does exactly that. He practiced to the last breath the thing he preached.
And notice the reason he gives: for they do not know what they are doing. There is a terrible mercy in that. He looks down at the people torturing him and sees, not monsters, but people lost, blind, caught up in something bigger than they understand. It does not excuse them. It does something deeper; it refuses to hand them over to the hatred they have earned. That is how God looks at us at our worst: not blind to the wrong, but seeing the confusion and the smallness underneath it, and choosing mercy anyway.
Then, in the middle of his own agony, he still has attention to spare for one broken man beside him. One of the criminals mocks him; the other, somehow, sees. We are getting what we deserve, he says, but this man has done nothing wrong. And then, with nothing left to offer, just a dying thief's hope: Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom. He asks for so little, only to be remembered. And Jesus, who is dying himself, gives him far more than he asked: today you will be with me in Paradise. No probation, no list of conditions, no time to prove himself. A wretch at the very end of a wasted life turns toward Jesus with the last strength he has, and is welcomed home on the spot. That is the door, and it is never shut too late.
Luke adds two strange details near the end, and they are worth a moment. Darkness came over the whole land, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. The veil was the curtain that closed off the holiest place, the room no one could enter, where God was said to dwell. At the moment of his death it tears, and the tearing reads like something being opened from the inside. Whatever else it means, it means this: the way to God is not curtained off anymore. The death that looked like the end of everything was a door coming open.
At the end he cries out, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit, and breathes his last. Even here, at the bottom of everything, in the dark, he is not abandoned, and he knows it. He does not fall into nothing. He falls into his Father's hands. He had trusted the Father his whole life, and he trusted him through the one door we are all most afraid of, and went through it with a prayer on his lips.
Everything he ever taught, he did on that cross. He forgave his enemies. He welcomed a sinner who barely turned toward him. He put his life in the Father's hands. If you want to know whether the way of love is only fine words, or whether a person can actually live it all the way to the bottom, look at how he died. He meant every word of it. He proved it here.
At the table
Who are you still waiting to see repent before you will forgive them, when he forgave before anyone asked? Where do you need to hear, today, that the door is not shut too late?
Scripture quotations are from the World English Bible (public domain). The divine name is rendered "the LORD" in the companions.