Father Forgive Them--Sermon fo 3/6

FATHER FORGIVE THEM
Luke 23:32-38
32 There were also two others, criminals, led with Him to be put to death. 33 And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left. 34 Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”[a]
And they divided His garments and cast lots. 35 And the people stood looking on. But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, “He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God.”
36 The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, 37 and saying, “If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself.”
38 And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew:[b]

THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.




Her friends said she did not mean to, but…she did it. Allen Rose was a tow-truck driver. Detra Farries was a Denver mom down in Colorado Springs visiting her friends. Farries had her car repossessed several times in the last few years. When she saw Allen Rose about to tow away her car for being illegally parked she decided she was not going to take it. Somehow, when Allen was not looking she got up into the vehicle and got it off the truck and down the road. As Rose attempted to stop her, he got his leg stuck in the towing cable attached to the car. It wrapped around his leg and drug him. The police say he was dragged along behind that SUV for over a mile. He skidded along the pavement. He waved. He yelled. He screamed. First because he thought he could get the woman to stop. Later he simply cried out in agony. He bounced and scraped along the pavement for over a mile. Blood spurted and sprayed everywhere. Slowly his clothes shredded away from his body. People tried to wave at the woman to stop. She didn’t see them. She just kept going. Detra drove until that tow rope snapped and threw Allen’s tattered body off of the thoroughfare into a ditch. Then she kept on going.


Her friends said she was distraught. They say she had no idea what she was doing to that poor man as she tore his body apart. She just knew she did not want anybody to take her care. She did not want to be a killer. But she was.
Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.

Jesus uttered these words while he was hanging on a cross. For the next seven Sundays between now and Easter we will listen to Jesus’ final words on the cross. Focusing on these seven words is an ancient practice of the church during Good Friday. Often there would be seven sermons, one on each of the statements Jesus made. These sermons would be preached consecutively on one day. I thought it would behoove us to take our time, and look at each of these statements one by one.
The first of the seven words or sayings from the cross is this: Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.

The Scripture says that Jesus was taken to that cross to be killed. He was put on a cross by faithful soldiers carrying out their duties. He was sent to the cross by religious leaders zealous to make a public stand for their faith and for righteousness. Jesus was sent to a cross by one of his disciples who sold him out, perhaps hoping he would take a stand and be the strong Messiah he had hoped for. Jesus was sent to a cross by a man named Pilate who believed he had to allow the Hebrew people to crucify Jesus to keep the peace.

As he was taken to the cross, his disciples scattered. Jesus’ friends did not come to his defense. The soldiers took his clothes off and gambled for his garments. People put a robe on him, and a crown of thorns. They put a mocking sign above him which said, “King of the Jews”.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”
Jesus uttered these words when most of us would have felt utterly alone and completely abandoned and betrayed.

I don’t know about you. If I had been taken to the cross, my first words would not have been Jesus’ first words. If I had been stripped naked, if I had nails go through my wrists and my feet, if I had been put up on a pole struggling for every breathe my first words would not have been Jesus’ first words.





Then he was taken to a cross. What is difficult about being on a cross is not so much being nailed there, although that would be quite awful. Most people who die on a cross die of suffocation. This is because as one hangs on a cross one’s body slumps. It becomes more and more difficult to breathe. Eventually one has to push one’s body up with one’s legs. This rips into the nail wounds. It also forces the back, which had been whipped, to scrape against an old piece of wood that give jagged slivers as it is moved against. Over and over, as one tries to suffer through crucifixion, one moves between the agony of almost suffocating, and the agony of one’s body being ripped into and through each time one moves.

The pain would have been bad enough. But the other half of the horror of crucifixion would have been utter humiliation. People are crucified in someplace visible to everyone. They are crucified naked. Before long as they are dying people lose control of their bodily functions on a cross. This loss of control is visible to all. With Jesus they make comments wondering why if he is so special he does not save himself. They put a mocking sign above his head to say “King of the Jews”. They dress him up to look like a king and continue to mock Him. They steal his clothes, and then gamble for them.

As they both utterly humiliate him, and torture him to death, he reaches out in forgiveness. As they do all sorts of evil against Him, He prays for them.
He says, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do”.
There is something unique about this prayer. What is especially powerful about this prayer is that it is a prayer that is prayed preemptively. In other words Jesus prays for our forgiveness before we ask for it ourselves.

We do all sorts of things to avoid facing the truth. We do all sorts of things to avoid facing the truth about our sin. We do all sorts of things to avoid facing the truth about the evil that lurks in our hearts and in our lives. We do all sorts of thing to avoid looking directly at our lives and confronting the wretched things we have done in all its ugliness.

We minimize the wrong that we do. We justify our sin by claiming ignorance while playing God. We put blinders on and refuse to see how our selfish behavior has left a trail of destruction and ruin behind us.

Instead of becoming aware of the evil in our lives, and the heartache we are causing, we live our lives in some sense like Detra Ferries. We want what we want, we don’t care who it hurts to get what we want, and only later do we look back at the wretched things we have done and are shocked at all the unintended damage we caused as we went down the road.

It is not only to Roman politicians and soldiers, or Jewish religious leaders that Jesus cries out his first words from the cross. It is for you and me that he prays those words.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do”.
He prays those words for us before we can ask him to pray those words for us. He sees us before we see ourselves.

As a matter of fact, it is the cross, really, which shows us our need for forgiveness. As we see Christ suffer there, as we remember his death and his resurrection on that cross, as our attention is focused there, our sin is on display for all to see. Even more, the cost of our sin is visible in the bloody, emaciated, barely recognizable body of Jesus our Lord.

It has become fashionable to minimize the cross. To say that Christians should think less and less about the cross. That we should not focus on suffering and death of Jesus on Calvary. That we should fast forward past the cross and go straight to the joy of the empty tomb. Churches tear down their crosses from their sanctuaries and replace them with advertisements, or movie screens, or anything that can somehow shield them from confronting their sin.

You need to hear Jesus praying, and praying these words for you.

Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

There is no forgiveness without the cross.




We need to hear these truths. We need to hear these words. As we do we will become aware of two things.

First, we will become aware of the truth that when Jesus says these words he is not just speaking about some of us. Everybody is in need of God’s forgiveness. When we listen to Jesus pray this prayer from the cross we come to understand he is speaking about all of us. Everybody is living in ignorance of their sin, and everybody desperately needs the forgiveness Jesus offers.

At the same time we come to realize something else. We come to realize that nobody, absolutely nobody, no matter what they have done, it outside of God’s ability or desire to forgive.

So my brothers and sisters, I want you to hear these words ringing in your ears.
“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

I want you to hear the compassion in those words. That in his worst moment, Jesus is concerned about you. As he is dying, he is thinking about how ignorant and lost and alone you are. Here him say it:

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Friend, you need to take the blinders off. You need to listen to these words and know that you have sinned. You may not have known what you were doing exactly, but you have made your life an ugly, dirty, petty mess nonetheless. You may have been in church for a day, a week, a year, or your life. But you have never acknowledged your need for God’s forgiveness. You have never bent the knee in repentance to Christ. You need to accept the gift Jesus is offering when he cries out,

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Brothers and sisters in Christ, you need to remember who you are. You are sinners who have been saved by God’s grace. You have done nothing to earn or deserve God’s goodness, but you have had the opportunity to receive his salvation nonetheless. You too need to hear those words of grace over and over again

“Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

It is for this reason that we come to the table of our Lord. To remember we need grace. To remember we need forgiveness. To remember we need the cross and the gifts it offers. To remember, to accept, to live.