Father, Forgive Them

Jesus’ first word from the cross is a prayer: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” He is at least thinking of the Roman soldiers who just drove the nails into him—they’re just a bunch of ignorant stooges of the Roman Empire, and have no idea what’s really going on. Jesus could also be praying more broadly, for everyone involved in his crucifixion—the hostile crowds, the conniving Jewish leaders, even weak-willed Pilate. In either case, Jesus’ first word from the cross is a prayer of mercy for his enemies, who are actively sinning against him. What does this tell us about him?

Most crucifixion victims spent the last of their strength spewing out bitter curses on their enemies. Since they were powerless to do anything else, they used their words to lash out at all the people involved in their crucifixion— “You’ll pay for this!” “My brothers will avenge me, you’ll see!” “I hope you all rot in hell for what you’ve done to me!” The two men crucified with Jesus seems be doing this kind of thing as they hang from their crosses. Jesus, of course, has every reason to seek vengeance on his enemies. Unlike any other crucifixion victim, Jesus is completely innocent of all wrongdoing!

One of the men crucified with him will eventually admit that he and his fellow criminal have in fact done all kinds of bad stuff in their lives, and are really just getting what they deserve. But Jesus is declared seven different times in Luke 23 to be totally and completely innocent! No one has had more reason to respond to mistreatment with vengeance.

But Jesus is also different from those other crucifixion victims in another way. He is not powerless! When he was arrested, Jesus told his disciples, “Do you think that I cannot appeal to my Father, and he will at once send me more than twelve legions of angels?” (Matt 26:53)

This reminds me of an Old Testament story in 2 Kings 1, when a wicked king keeps sending groups of fifty soldiers to capture God’s prophet Elijah, who sits unguarded on top of a hill. And each time a new group of soldiers shows up, Elijah calls down fire from heaven on his enemies and consumes them! Now here is Jesus, God’s Last and Greatest Prophet, on top of another hill, surrounded on every side by cruel enemies. He could have done what Elijah did! He could have prayed “Father, consume them!” and incinerated every person on Calvary. But Jesus doesn’t do it. He doesn’t call down fire from heaven, or send for twelve legions of angels. He doesn’t utter a single curse. He prays. “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

Jesus’ first word from the cross is good news for us at the beginning of Easter Week; it shows us the ministry Jesus came to provide for us. As Jesus prays for his enemies here, he is intentionally acting like a priest. He is carrying on a pattern of intercessory ministry we find throughout the Old Testament. For example, when Moses leads the people of Israel through the wilderness in Exodus and Numbers, the people repeatedly turn against him, and bring the wrath of God down on the camp. But instead of standing back while God destroys his own enemies, Moses will fling himself between God’s blazing fury and the sinners who just knifed him in the back for the dozenth time that month! Time and again, Moses shields the guilty people from the judgment of God. This is what a priest does; this is intercessory ministry; it is the work of a mediator.

This is the ministry Jesus came to provide for sinners like you and me, and we see a tiny snapshot of it in his first word from the cross. Here, we find Jesus interceding with God on behalf of sinners, standing between a holy God and the wicked people who deserve his wrath, pleading with the Lord for mercy. He does this for law-breakers who need that mercy more than their next gulp of oxygen—though they are too ignorant to know that they do, and too hard-hearted to care. Yet Jesus prays for them anyway: “Father forgive them, for they know not what they do.”

But Jesus is also a far greater priest than Moses or any of those other Old Testament mediators! Jesus can do for us what Moses could never do for Israel. Jesus not only asks God to forgive sinners; Jesus secures their forgiveness by taking their punishment on himself! Moses stood between the people and the abyss of God’s judgment, but Jesus casts himself headlong into the wrath of God for us. Moses was himself a sinner who needed a mediator; he could not lead the people into the Promised Land and he never made it there himself. But Jesus our sinless Mediator is able to lead us struggling sinners all the way through the
wilderness of this world and into the eternal rest of God by his priestly ministry.

There is a world of comfort for sinners like us in Jesus’ first word from the cross. This prayer is a window into the heart of Jesus toward sinners at their absolute worst. Have you ever sinned so badly, or sinned in the same way so many times, that you were sure Jesus must want nothing to do with you? That he was sick of dealing with the same garbage from you, year in and year out? That, if he wasn’t totally angry with you, he was at least embarrassed and exasperated with you? Then come again to the cross of Jesus and listen to his first word—so tender, so merciful, so gracious, so slow to anger, so eager to reconcile—offered up for sinners in the very act of putting him to death! Surely this offers some encouragement to us on this Palm Sunday!

Here is “a merciful and faithful high priest” (Heb 2:17) Here is the “advocate” sinners need before the throne of God (1 John 2:1)! Here is the one who nudges us toward him with the words of Hebrews 4:16: “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.”

If you want to respond to Jesus’ first word from the cross, start by laying this book down and bringing him all of your sins. Bring all those times you “did not know what you were doing,” as you went with the flow of our God-dishonoring world instead of living for his glory. And then bring him all those times that you knew exactly what you were doing, as you stubbornly went your way instead of his, not caring who you hurt in the process. Bring him all your failures and half-hearted efforts from yesterday, and bring him the most shameful sins from way back in the past—even the ones that seem unforgivable. When you and I come to Jesus as sinners in need of mercy, we will find that he still loves to pray before a holy God, “Father, forgive them.”

We can know Jesus’ prayer for us will be answered, because at the cross he purchased our forgiveness by receiving what we deserve in our place. God administered strict justice to his beloved Son for my sin, so he could pour out endless mercy on us. The Bible assures us that Jesus never tires of pouring out these merciful prayers for us: he “ever lives to make intercession” for his people—he is praying and advocating for me right now, to make sure that I make it all the way home! (Heb 7:25, Rom 8:34; 1 John 2:1).

But be careful. Because when the never-ending, never-failing, moment-by-moment mercy of Jesus washes over you, it might just soften your own proud, vengeful heart. You may even find yourself compelled to pray for some enemies of your own (Luke 6:27–36).

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Article by Eric Smith
Senior Pastor, Sharon Baptist Church