Sunday, May 13, 2012

True Spirituality Leads to Right Action


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. 

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