Today we conclude our path in looking at the prayer’s that Jesus prayed, and how he prayed and what he prayed, by looking at Jesus’ prayer from the cross of offering forgiveness. Now it could probably argued that Jesus actually offers three prayers from the cross. One is “Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit” and we could look at that as a prayer of learning to turn our lives over to God, except in this case it is literally his life that is being turned over. That’s an important prayer, and perhaps one we could place with the prayers of going to a quiet place to pray, but one which we are not going to discuss, at least not today. The second is “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” a quote from psalm 22, and one of my favorite scripture passages, which is a cry of despair, which for simple classification of prayers I am going to put with Jesus’ prayer asking God to take the cup from him, which we discussed last week. And so, although it’s a really important passage, we are not going to discuss it, although I was supposed to give a short message on this passage for the community Good Friday service, but which probably won’t happen this year. I would encourage you to go read the 22nd Psalm which moves from a cry of despair to one of God’s triumph, which I think is attached to Jesus’ cry. But again, another message for another day. And so today, for prayers, we are going to be looking at the prayer of forgiveness, “Father forgive them, for they do not know what they do.”
But before we do that, a quick recap of the other things we learn from Jesus’ prayers. The first is that just as Jesus often went and spent time by himself in prayer, that we are to do the same thing, whether it’s just a few moments, or a few hours, or even a few days, or maybe even 40 days, but we need that time to talk with God, but even more importantly to listen to God. Second was to be in prayer throughout the day in everything that we do, most especially to be in prayer for others, a great thing always, but especially now, and also to pray for God’s help with those things that seem impossible, that we need God’s help to accomplish. Third is to make sure to give prayers of thanksgiving, not just in good times, but also in troubling times, most especially in troubling times so that we can be reminded of the blessings we receive and the fact that God is always with us. Then the prayer for last week was Jesus lamentation, or cry of asking the cup to be taken from him, which had us talking about embodied prayer, that is our bodies being engaged with the words that we are saying, about, again, going to a quiet place, about listening to God when we pray, and also about asking God for things, like help in times of despair. But also knowing that merely because what we ask for doesn’t happen, doesn’t mean it is the will of God, or that God isn’t there for us or doesn’t care, because every time we go to God in prayer we receive the Holy Spirit and God’s assurance that we are not alone. And so that then leads us into the last prayer.
Jesus talks about forgiveness. A lot. In my brief count, there are 39 references to forgiving or forgiveness in the gospel. There are 20 in the rest of the New Testament, and most of those are about the forgiveness of sin found in Christ. But when Jesus talks about forgiveness, its not just about forgiveness in God, but about how we are to live together. Of forgiving others debts or trespasses against us, just as also be seeking forgiveness for where we have failed. Jesus says that if you don’t forgive, you won’t be forgiven. And when Peter asks how many times we have to forgive someone, even seven times, Jesus responds not seven times but seventy seven times, or in some manuscripts seventy times seven times, that is we have to keep on doing it again and again. And this is not just some teaching, but an example he lived out. Forgiveness is a part of who Jesus was and what he did, and so it’s not, therefore, very surprising that we hear this prayer from the cross.
And yet, if you are reading this passage directly from the Bible, or the scripture insert, you will notice that there are a set of double brackets around this particular prayer, at least in the New Revised Standard Version. And what the brackets indicate, if you go down and read the note at the bottom, which is also true in the NIV translation, is that this line is not found in all of our earliest manuscripts, which then leaves translators and scholars to try and determine if this line is part of the original manuscript and was taken out at a later time, or was not originally there and was added at a later time. Now normally it’s a lot easier to make an argument for why something might be added later, rather than why something might be removed, and so typically they will make a notation that a particular passage is probably not original to the text. But, here you can make some strong arguments about why the passage may have been removed, such as the fact that a scribe might not have wanted Jesus’ forgiveness to have been given to the people who killed him, and so it was taken out. To name just one argument that’s been made. Additionally, the line certainly matches Luke’s narrative about Jesus surrounding not just forgiveness but also prayer, and it sounds exactly like something we would imagine Jesus saying. And so while the manuscript evidence is divided on its authenticity, I would say that most scholars accept it as having been original.
Then the question of who Jesus is giving forgiveness to comes to the fore? Is it to the roman soldiers who did the actual crucifying? Is it the Roman authorities who ordered it? Is it the Jewish authorities who felt threatened and turned him over to the Romans? Or is it, as I think is probably the fact, that he is forgiving all of them? Because if you are going to be living a life of forgiveness, it has to be for everything and everyone. Jesus does not say that you get to draw a line with people, that if they steal from you, you have to forgive, but if they try and kill you then all bets are off. Instead, he calls us to live up to standards that seem impossible. Just as he gives forgiveness and shares a meal with the disciples, knowing what will happen, so too does he not fail in his ideals on the cross. And the great moral philosopher Jon Stewart said, "If you don't stick to your values when they are being tested, they're not values, they're hobbies." Forgiveness is a value, and it doesn’t just start with a prayer of forgiveness it starts way before that, because part of this comes from Jesus’ injunction for us to pray for our enemies and those who persecute us.
And I’ve said before, those prayers are not for them, they are for us. Because when we start praying for those who are opposed to us, we are changed by the experience. It’s hard to continue to dislike someone when you are praying for their well being and for God’s blessings to be upon them. It changes your views and perspectives. I was once in a significant conflict with someone, and in the midst of it, I stopped and just started praying for him, and for God to comfort and console him and to bring peace into his life and to take away his pain and anxiety, and you know what happened? Suddenly I was at peace and begin to approach things differently. Although honestly I am still working on the forgiveness thing with him, which includes being petty and being happy everytime his football time loses. But I’m working on it. And here’s the thing about praying for forgiveness and truly meaning it, and truly living it, you can’t start with the big things. If you want to be able to forgive people for the major things, like crucifying you, it’s only because you have worked on forgiving all the small things, and you do it all the time. That’s why the Lord’s Prayer, which you should pray at least once a week, but really it should be more, or at least the parts of it, calls for us to ask God to forgive us, just as we are forgiving others. It has to be something we are living all the time. And those who have worked on forgiving people for major events in their lives will tell you that you can only get to the big things because of the work leading up to it. To actually forgive the big things in our lives that happen, we have to learn to forgive the small things, and the reverse is true. If you want to forgive the small things, you have to forgive the big things. Because you can’t be hanging onto the small or big things and truly live and pray for forgiveness. They all have to be worked on.
And the reason we have to learn to forgive is because otherwise all those hurts and wounds stay with us, and they weigh us down and keep us from being able to move forward. They become our baggage and we cannot be carrying that weight, that resentment, even that hatred around and do the things we are called to do. As someone once said, not forgiving someone is like drinking poison and expecting it to hurt the person who hurt us. And so Jesus offers forgiveness on the cross not necessarily because they deserved forgiveness, not because they didn’t understand; Jesus offers forgiveness on the cross so that he can go to his death with a clean conscience, a clean heart, that he can leave the world in love. And the same is true for us. We are called to pray for forgiveness so that God can take these things from us, that God can cleanse our hearts and minds, that we can leave the hurts behind, that our minds can be renewed by Christ. And once we learn to forgive, then it should also be easier to seek forgiveness, to see the places where we too have fallen short and hurt others, because the two go hand and hand. So as we make our way through these last few weeks of Lent, we should remember that it is a time of repentance, a time for seeking God’s forgiveness, but also a time of giving forgiveness. And that means the final step of traveling in the prayer paths of Jesus is to learn to forgive and to pray for it, not just once in awhile, but to pray for it and to live into it every single day. I pray that it will be so my brothers and sisters. Amen.
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