Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34)
There are many ways of thinking about Easter. One with a long tradition is to consider what Jesus said while he was on the cross. The four Gospel writers record seven sayings (traditionally called the ‘Seven Last Words’) spoken by Jesus on the cross, which overflow with meaning. Taken together they sum up what Easter – and Christianity – means.
The background is that some time in the morning of the first Good Friday, immediately after the evening that saw the start of Passover, Jesus was nailed to the cross. The Gospel writers record that, as Jesus hung on the cross, from noon to three in the afternoon, darkness fell upon the earth. It is a darkness that echoes what Christ experienced: a death somehow worse than death.
In the first of the seven sayings, Jesus prays for his persecutors: ‘Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’
It is important to notice that here Jesus refers to God as ‘Father’ or, in the original Aramaic, ‘Abba’. This was the normal way that Jesus prayed to God, showing how he knew God in a personal way.
The important thing here is the way that Jesus prays for others. Most of us have problems praying for good people at good times. What is remarkable here is that Jesus is able to pray for bad people at a bad time. Here, in appalling pain, Jesus’ concern remains for others. In praying like this, Jesus is living out his own teaching: ‘But to you who are listening I say: love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who ill-treat you’ (Luke 6:27–28). Jesus a moral teacher who lives out what he says.
Notice, too, the content of Jesus prayer: ‘Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.’ Jesus puts forward what we might call in legal language ‘extenuating circumstances’ – the fact that his persecutors didn’t fully realise that they were torturing and mocking the Messiah, the Son of God.
In his first letter, the apostle John writes, ‘My dear children, I write this to you so that you will not sin. But if anybody does sin, we have an advocate with the Father – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One’ (1 John 2:1). John uses a legal term (παράκλητον) to describe the role of Jesus, a word we might translate as ‘defence lawyer’. What this word means in practice is shown perfectly on the cross.
Jesus asks his heavenly Father to forgive people and offers every possible excuse for them. That’s what we all need, even the best of us: a God who, in Jesus, is on our side and who speaks on our behalf.
Ponder: Who then will condemn us? No one – for Christ Jesus died for us and was raised to life for us, and he is sitting in the place of honour at God’s right hand, pleading for us.
Romans 8:34, NLT
Prayer: Thank you, Lord God, that you are on our side. Give us the capacity to forgive others as you have forgiven us. Amen.
