Scripture portion: Luke: 23:34a “Father, Forgive them, for they do
not know what they are doing…..”
Introduction
Background
The gospel
of Luke is written by a physician or a Historian, Luke, which is mentioned in
Colossians 4:14. He was a Greek and a Gentile Christian. He is the only known
Gentile author in NT. He wrote this letter about 60 A.D. and the purpose of
this gospel is to affirm the humanity and the divinity of Jesus, proving that
Jesus is Son of God at the same time Son of Man. He wrote this letter to
Theophilus and the churches around.
When comes
to the setting of this passage, the preceding passages talks about the
crucifixion of Jesus Christ - Chapter 22 speaks about the Jewish Religious
leaders plotting against Jesus. By chapter 23, Jesus stood trail before the
Pilate, by chapter 23: 32, Jesus is placed on the cross with the two thieves on
the both sides. When Jesus said this statement he was crucified and here is the
situation where Jesus is going through pain- he is beaten up, dragged to
Golgotha, mocked and scorned. When Jesus hung on the cross he said few
statements which are commonly known as the seven sayings of Christ and first
statement on the cross is Luke 23:34, “Father, Forgive these people, because
they know not what they doing.”
He said, “Father, Forgive them, for they do not
know what they are doing…..”
vs. 34a. The
first word he said is “Father”-
we can see Jesus has used the word Father many times in his prayers. We can see
in Lord’s Prayer in Matthew 6 where he says ‘Our Heavenly Father’ and in John
17:1 where he prays for himself for His glorification, in Matthew 26: 39 the
prayer of Gethsemane and in Mark 14:36 he starts His prayer as ‘Abba Father’. When
compared to the Old Testament, Jesus is the first person who introduces Father to
the world or He was the first person who introduced a heavenly Father to the
mankind. In OT understanding, Jews never had an understanding of Father but
they had an understanding the God as King. So they even feared to pronounce the
name of the God. In that context Jesus introduces the God as Father. Whenever
Jesus used the term Father in His prayers; He portrayed the relationship of the
heavenly Father and the Son which is unique in its understanding and essence.
We can see in that the relationship was so deep that in the life of Jesus there
was no time that Father left Jesus or turned out His face from Him except when
Jesus was on the cross where he says the Father, Father, Why have you forsaken
me. Even there I believe that it was not the will of God that he turns his face
but as Jesus was bearing the sin of the mankind, God cannot see sin, He turned
his face from Jesus.
To
understand this relationship, we have to understand the characteristic of God
and Jesus Christ. God the Father is Holy at the same Time God, the Son is also
Holy. God, the Father is Just and the same time God the Son is also Just, and
God, the Father is Love and at the same time God, the son is also love. So the
characteristic of Father is clearly seen in the life of Son, that is why Jesus
said, whoever has seen me has seen the Father. The unity and uniqueness in that
relationship is seen very clear.
In one way Jesus was teaching or helping the mankind
to understand the deepness of the relationship which is expected by Creator for
human. Jesus whenever used the term the Father, He was genuine in
its sense and in his usage. He was honest and sincere in his call towards the
Father. In the Garden of Gethsemane we can see the deepness of that
relationship. He said, “not my will but your will be done.” It makes us to
understand the willingness of Jesus to do anything what his Heavenly Father
wants Him to do, whatever may be experience or consequence. He was ready to do
any thing for the sake of Father that means Father’s will is same as the Son’s
will. The extremeness to do anything can be understood in the life of Jesus
which is the death of Jesus Christ on the cross of Calvary. That is the
relationship which they have with each other.
When comes
into our own life, our whole system of Christianity have minimized the
relationship with God the Father by spending time in prayers and reading Bible.
I am not against reading Bible and prayer, it also the part of spirituality,
but I feel Jesus went above our conception of spirituality. For us spirituality
is just spend time in prayer and reading Bible. We have prayer and bible
reading but we have missed the mark of spirituality which Jesus meant, in the
sense that there is no pragmatic aspect or the practical aspect of our sense of
spirituality, which is not what God meant in having relationship with Him. The
relationship comes into existence when there is a practical aspect of what we
read and pray. But Jesus did that He not only spent time in prayer but also
practiced what he taught.
Secondly Jesus said in vs. 34b is “Forgive them,
for they do not know what they are doing…..”
This is the
pray which he starts praying as ‘Father’ and the petition put forward is
forgiveness i.e. “Forgive these people, because they do not know what they are
doing.” It is prophesy which Isaiah Prophesied in 53:12, which has been
fulfilled when Jesus said this prayer, which says, “Now he made intercession for transgressors.” As I said
earlier Jesus here is going through the tough time he had in his earthly life.
He was going through the greatest suffering which no mankind has ever seen or
suffered as He did, and in the midst of that suffering he says, “Forgive these people, because they do
not know what they are doing” which humanly speaking, does not make any
sense to mankind because he won’t believe that a person can ever pray in this
way. Here Jesus was interceding for the people who are responsible for His
suffering, the people who abused him, mocked him, and insulted him. Here, Jesus
was able to do it only because of His relationship with God the Father. Here,
Jesus is practicing what He taught in the sermon of the mount in Matthew 5: 44, which says, “Love your
enemies, bless them that curse you, do good to them that hate you, and pray for
them which despitefully use you, and persecute you.” Jesus was
presenting a model before us by praying this prayer. He said, ‘forgive them’
which in itself was the extremeness of His love towards his enemies. When He
said love your enemies he was very much sure that without loving, one cannot
pray to forgive his/her enemies or even pray for the enemies.
The next
phrase is “for they do not know what
they are doing…..” when looked into the context in which Jesus prayed,
we can see there were two types of enemies. One, were his own people that is in
the sense that they were Jews, these are the people, He called, they are His
people and separated and meant to be Holy and pure, for whom he is a Messiah
who will deliver them from their bondage. And the other, were the Roman
soldiers who were doing their duty or showing loyalty towards Roman government
from whom Jesus was given the punishment of the crucifixion. When we look in
that era we can know that Roman Soldiers were very cruel in their dealings with
criminals. The movie Passion of Christ is
able to show some of the cruelty of Roman soldiers. Jesus said “for they know not what they
doing” the biggest question to be asked over here aren’t they knowing what they are doing? The fact is that they were
knowing that they were killing an criminal according to the Roman soldier but
for Jews, they were killing the person who has proclaimed blasphemer by the
Pharisees but we can say that soldiers were ignorant of the fact Jesus is the
Lord and creator of the earth but the Jewish
were not ignorant about the fact of Messiah but was not able to recognize the
fact that Jesus is that Messiah which OT prophesied, if they would have
known they would have never crucified Him. Jesus knowing this fact that they
were ignorant but when looked into other side of it, Jesus for Him he would
have had cursed them and the result of that cursing would have been worst than
anything else in this world. He didn’t do that but instead he prefers to pray
or intercede for them who want Him to die.
Humanly speaking,
practically it is impossible for a person to pray in this way. If you or I
would be there in that place of Jesus we would have prayed Father, consume
these people for they are persecuting me. The major aspect to be remembered is
that Jesus was the Son of God, when looked into the glory of Son Of God who is
the controller of the whole universe. I believe that this prayer was not only
for the Jews and the Roman soldiers but for each one of us. Each moment we do
sin I believe even now God is interceding for us in the right side of the
Father. When we are forgiven by God we have a right or the responsibility given
to us to forgive others. Many times our forgiveness is conditional in its
essence in the sense that we forgive for the selfish purpose,
In the same
way we also forgive for the sake of selfish benefit. In this way there are
selfish motive behind getting reconciling with other people this cannot be
called as forgiving nature. Jesus did not forgive us in having selfish desire
but He want us to be saved from the bondage of sin. I think so, people like
Stephen in Acts.7:59-60 and living example of Glady Stains are the few examples
for the forgiveness, their sense of forgiveness was like Jesus one, in
Stephen’s case he was stoned to death in that pain he prayed, “Lord, lay not
this sin to their charge.” Same prayer which Jesus prayed on the cross of
Calvary by which we can understand that Stephen practices what was taught by
Jesus on the sermon on the mount and then in the case of Glady Stains, her
husband and children were burned alive in Orissa but she said that she forgives
them and also prayed which reflects the love for her enemies. I think this is the
attitude of forgiveness which God expects from us. And in Lord’s Prayer we read,
‘forgive our sins as we forgive the sin of others,’ which means if we
are not able to forgive others respective of what they are, then our sins are
also not forgiven. Forgiveness is the major aspect of Christian faith and on
that we stand as Christian we are expected to forgive others as we are forgiven
by God. Let’s examine ourselves, do we forgive others? Or if we forgive, do our
forgiveness is dependent on condition? If we had forgiveness we weren’t be
divided by denomination, we weren’t divided for silly reason, we weren’t
divided within our own clans. In the book of Jonah, He says that God was
compassionate on the people of Nineveh and he changed his decision of their
destruction. Then who are we to keep hold on to what wrong people have, it says
love does not count the wrongs of the people. Then, why there is no
forgiveness? Especially in our Christian set up, forgiveness is lacking, we are
ready to receive forgiveness but not ready to forgive others. There is a need
of change in our present day society and culture of the Christianity. We have
comfortable with what we are, and do not want to come out of our comfort zone
for what God has called us.
