March 23, 2025 Words From The Cross: Father, Forgive Them | Luke 23:24-25, 32-34

Today we are beginning our Lenten series: Words from the Cross. We will reflect on Luke 23:24-25, 32-34, Father, Forgive Them. In many situations, forgiveness is one of the most difficult things to offer to someone. Jesus emphasizes the importance of forgiveness in his prayer when he teaches us to ask for forgiveness for our sins. He then goes on and teaches that when we forgive, then the Father will forgive us, but if we do not forgive, then the Father will not forgive us. This is a frightening thought in so many ways! On the cross, Jesus who never sinned and yet was tortured, falsely accused, and then sentenced to death an innocent man asks the Father, “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Forgiveness takes a deep trust in God and a humility that takes hard work to cultivate in our hearts, souls, and minds!

Transcript

Father, Forgive Them

Luke 23:24-25; 32-34

This is the part of the crucifixion of Jesus that always hits me the hardest, the part where the reason for Good Friday and Christmas come together for me. Jesus is praying for us after having been betrayed, beaten, unjustly condemned to a most cruel death by a cowardly governor and vengeful religious leaders, and nailed to a cross. Now Jesus prayers, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing.” Let that sink in for a moment.

My first question usually is, who is the “they” Jesus is praying for here? Is it the Jewish leaders who’ve been planning his death for a while now, is it Pilate who unjustly condemned Jesus even though he even confessed that he found Jesus innocent, is it the soldiers who beat and mocked him, is it the crowd who allowed themselves to be manipulated and riled up into an unthinking and vicious crowd, or might it be the ones on the crosses beside him? There are so many who need forgiveness and it’s easy to focus on them, but Lent is a time to be honest with ourselves and confess that it’s all of them and us too. We’re all sinners; it’s our sin that placed Jesus on the cross. We can identify with many, if not with all of those who were there 2,000 years ago in Jerusalem and around the cross. 

Jesus is praying here for each one of us, asking his Father to forgive us. We all need forgiveness. Jesus could have prayed for our punishment out of anger or vengeance, instead he prays for our forgiveness. In the middle of his physical and spiritual suffering, suffering we simply can’t understand, Jesus stays true to who he is as fully God, full of mercy and grace, choosing for his people instead of against them; out of his great love for us he chooses to forgive and takes the filthy sin of the world on himself so we can be washed clean, made holy for his Father. This is who Jesus is. 

Our forgiveness comes at a huge cost for Jesus, his grace to us is not cheap, as Dietrick Bonhoeffer reminds us. Forgiveness comes at a cost for all those who choose to forgive. Forgiveness is a choice, not a feeling. Forgiveness is a promise to not keep bringing the matter up with the one who has sinned against you, leaving it fully in the past. It means refusing to dwell on the offense, focusing on the forgiveness. Forgiveness means praying for the well-being of the other person, praying for the presence and blessing of the Holy Spirit in their lives, praying that the Holy Spirit will transform their, and your hearts, to be more Christ-like. 

Forgiveness is one of the big themes in Scripture. Forgiveness is rooted in grace and mercy, it’s pointed to in the Old Testament sacrifices and rituals, and it’s about God choosing to not give up on his people. The Jews understood sin as atonement leading to reconciliation between God and his people, they saw forgiveness as God lifting our sin from us and carried away, and forgiveness as an act of grace.

Forgiveness is best understood through the images God gives us to show us how complete his forgiveness for us really is. Psalm 103:12, “as far as the east is from the west, so far has he removed our transgressions from us,” and Isaiah 38:17, “Surely it was for my benefit that I suffered such anguish. In your love you kept me from the pit of destruction; you have put all my sins behind your back.” The Lord says in Jeremiah 31:34, “No longer will they teach their neighbor, or say to one another, ‘Know the Lord,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the Lord. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more.” Then there’s Micah 7:19, “You will again have compassion on us; you will tread our sins underfoot and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.” When God forgives, our sin is dealt with completely, he doesn’t see them anymore!

In the New Testament, forgiveness is rooted in God’s dealing graciously with his people, and the image of sending our sin away, of releasing us from our sin, the image of freedom from sin. Forgiveness in the New Testament always points us to Jesus and how he forgives, relating to us with deep grace, freeing us from the chains of sin. The call to repentance becomes more prominent, Jesus’ message at its heart is “Repent and believe, for the kingdom of heaven in near.” Repentance is Jesus’ call to us: confessing that we are sinners and confessing our sin with a desire to change with the help of the Holy Spirit because we cannot change on our own. Right after Jesus’ resurrection, he appears to his disciples and Luke writes, Luke 24:47, “and repentance for the forgiveness of sins will be preached in his name to all nations, beginning at Jerusalem.” Repentance is rooted in faith which is a gift from God so that we don’t connect our actions with earning God’s forgiveness. Our forgiveness is all about Jesus, an act of true grace.

On the cross, Jesus prays for forgiveness because “they do not know what they are doing.” This is fascinating because Jesus knows how clueless we can be when it comes to our own hearts and sin. This is a sobering picture of ourselves and should make us think much more deeply about what we really believe and how it shapes who we are and how we live. God knows our hearts, but do we? Do we recognize our sin and how it shapes how we interpret the world around us? How often do we shape our lives around what we want over what the Holy Spirit wants? Does love of God, neighbour, enemy, and persecutor truly shape our hearts and actions? Do we believe God adapts to our wants or do we truly shape ourselves on Scripture and who Jesus calls us to be?

In a day and age where most people have multiple Bibles in their houses, multiple preachers to listen to online and in-person, why are we more biblically illiterate than people even just 50 years ago? Are we like the people Paul warns about in 2 Timothy 4:3, “For the time will come when people will not put up with sound doctrine. Instead, to suit their own desires, they will gather around them a great number of teachers to say what their itching ears want to hear.” This is part of the reason the historical church developed the seasons of Lent and Advent, to get us into the Bible, especially the Gospels, to point us back to Jesus and our need for him. Ignorance doesn’t excuse us, but Jesus has sympathy for us, praying for our forgiveness even when we don’t understand just how much forgiveness we really need. Our reassurance is that the Father hears his Son’s prayer and answers it with mercy and grace! Pastor Norman Steen writes that, “When we pray for forgiveness our prayer is sure to be heard and answered, for we are praying along with Jesus; our prayer is wrapped up in his prayer. Our desire for forgiveness matches his desire that we be forgiven.”

We’ve focused on our sin and the need for repentance in response to Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. That’s because when we realize just how much we need forgiveness, when we realize how much Jesus did for us on the cross, we come to a place where we understand why Jesus taught us the importance of our forgiving others. We see this already when Jesus teaches us to pray, “Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us.” When we understand what it cost Jesus to wash away our sins, it takes us to a place of thankfulness, a place where our hearts are softened for others as Jesus’ has a soft heart, a heart of flesh for us. when we forgive others, it reveals that our repentance is real. Our forgiveness of others flows out of Jesus’ forgiveness for us, as Paul tells us in Colossians 3:13, “Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you.”

Forgiveness is hard and a process. It begins by deciding to forgive. One man began every day for over 20 years by speaking into a mirror, “I forgive….,” and then he listed the names of soldiers who had abused him and other prisoners in a concentration camp during WW 2. He said it took 20 years for the forgiveness to move from his mouth to his heart. He chose to forgive because Jesus told him the importance of forgiveness and that a lack of forgiveness would poison his heart otherwise. It took the Holy Spirit softening his heart through the years, showing him how much Jesus loved him and that the only way he would be able to forgive is to let Jesus’ love, as shown in Jesus forgiving his sin, shape his heart and allow him to accept Jesus’ forgiveness and allow that forgiveness flow through him. Ephesians 4:32, “Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you,” helped him understand this. One word of warning, forgiveness does not mean placing yourself in danger or an abusive relationship, forgiveness and justice work together, they are not opposites. 

Forgiveness through grace is at the heart of our faith. If there is anyone you need to forgive, begin by embracing Jesus’ forgiveness of your sin, and then pray for his help in forgiving. It may just start with words, but the Holy Spirit will work in you to move forgiveness from words to your heart, allowing you to begin to let go of the hurt and brokenness.