When we recall that Jesus was whipped, and tortured, a crown of thorns was placed on his head, and he was hit, spit on, and mocked, we might be shocked to hear the first words that come from the cross – “Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34).
Jesus
had taught us in His teaching on the Mount – “You have heard that it was
said, 'You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.' But I say to you,
Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:43-44). He rebuked the disciples when they wanted to
call down fire on those who sought to undermine Jesus’ ministry. When it came to “love your enemies”, Jesus
showed us how to do it.
Who did
he forgive? He forgave Judas who
betrayed him. He forgave Caiaphas who
manipulated people to get Jesus condemned.
He forgave Pontius Pilate, who tried to excuse himself from
responsibility by washing his hands. He
forgave the soldiers who brutally treated him leading up to and including being
nailed to the cross.
Jesus
forgave us! “But God proves his love
for us in that while we still were sinners Christ died for us.
Much more surely then, now that we have been justified by his blood, will
we be saved through him from the wrath of God. For if while we were enemies, we
were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more surely, having
been reconciled, will we be saved by his life. Romans 5:8-10
“All of
us once lived among them in the passions of our flesh, following the desires of
flesh and senses, and we were by nature children of wrath, like everyone else.
But God, who is rich in mercy, out of the great love with which he loved
us even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together
with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and
seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, (Ephesians 2:3-6).
One of
my favorite prayers, probably repeated several times a day is “Lord, have mercy
upon me/us”. While I may not be Judas, I have betrayed my Savior. While I may have not beaten Christ with a
whip, I have turned my back on him and sinned against him. Jesus was not just praying for those who had
done these things to him, but for all of us, down through the ages who need
God’s mercy and grace.
At one
point in Jesus’ sermon on the Mount, he reminded us of the great need for
forgiveness.
“For if
you forgive others their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive
you;
but if you do not forgive others, neither will your Father forgive your
trespasses” (Matthew 6:14-15).
In 1972,
Corrie Ten Boom was a popular speaker who told her story of surviving the Nazi
concentration camp at Ravensbruck. The
prison camp that infamously had exterminated thousands of Jews and other groups
of people, had a garrison of guards that often treated the prisoners
inhumanely. Corrie Ten Boom survived due
to a clerical error that set her free, but her sister, her brother, and her father
did not. Still, she wanted to tell the
story of their suffering from a God-ward point of view, especially in Germany
where – she felt – many Germans had suffered under Nazi terror. In 1947, she spoke at a German church in
Munich. Later she wrote of that night
when her world would forever change:
“Many people in the church, hearing that God, forgiving our sins, does
not remember them anymore, silently got up, took their coats, and silently
left… The ruthless war left too many scars and pain in their hearts. After the
service, Corrie was approached by a bald man in a gray overcoat and a brown hat
in his hand. He smiled and bowed politely. Corrie looked at him attentively,
and a blue uniform and a cap with a cockade flashed in front of her eyes, and
on it was a skull and two crossed bones. She immediately recognized him as a
former overseer, one of the most cruel punishers and escorts in the Ravensbrück
concentration camp, an SS officer. She remembered the shame with which she, her
poor sister Betsy, and other women walked naked in front of the guards, and in
front of this man. Corrie writes of a deep inner struggle: “Here he stood
against me with an outstretched hand, and I heard his voice: “Froilian, how
nice it was to hear that God casts all our sins into the depths of the sea, and
remembers them no more.”
He was talking, and I, who had just spoken so confidently about
forgiveness, stood and rummaged in my bag in embarrassment, unable to reach out
my hand to him.
“You mentioned Ravensbrück in your speech,” he continued, “and I was a
warden there. But since then I have become a Christian and I know that God has
forgiven me for all the cruelties that I have committed. And yet I would like
to hear a word of forgiveness from your lips, Fraulein. Can you forgive me?”
Her sister’s slow, horrific death resurfaced in Corrie’s memory…
The man stood with outstretched hand, hoping for forgiveness. It only
lasted a few seconds, but to Corrie, they seemed like an eternity. She continued,
“Jesus, help me,” I prayed to myself, “I can reach out to him, and that’s all I
can do on my own, but You give me the right feeling.” Corrie held out her hand
to him – the former prisoner – the former camp guard. “I forgive you, brother…
with all my heart.” She later wrote: “I have never felt God’s love so keenly as
I did in that moment. But even then I understood that it was not my love, but
God’s. I tried to love, but I didn’t have the strength to do so. But here the
power of the Holy Spirit was at work, and His love … “After that, she had every
right to say:” Forgiveness is a volitional decision, and the will can function regardless
of the temperature of the heart” and again: “Memory is the key not to the past,
but to the future.”[1]
“Father,
forgive them, for they know what they do”.
Peace
[1] There are many places that record her story of this
incident. I found this online at
https://www.corrietenboom.com/
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