FORGIVE THEM

FORGIVE THEM

 

The Centurion halted outside the old walled city, in the midst of the young verdure of the suburban gardens. The city of Caiaphas did not allow capital punishment within its walls; the air perfumed with the virtue of the Pharisees would be polluted; and the soft hearts of the Sadducees would be distressed; hence, condemned prisoners were expelled from the city before their death.

They had stopped on the summit of a rounded mound of limestone resembling a skull. This resemblance might seem to be the reason for choosing this place for executions, but the real reason was rather because the two great roads from Jaffa and Damascus crossed each other close at hand, and it was best that the cross should show its terrible warning to the traveling multitude of pilgrims, merchants and provincials.

The sun, the benign sun of the solstice, the high noon-day sun, shone on the white mound and on the pickax chisels ringing sonorously in the rock. In the nearby gardens the spring flowers expanded in the mild air; singing birds, hidden in the trees, sound the air with the silver arrows of their warbling; doves flew about in pairs in the warm, pastoral peace. It would be sweet to live there in some well-watered garden beside a well, in the perfume of the earth awakening and clothing itself, awaiting the harvest moon, in company with loving friends! Days of Galilee, days of peace, days of sunshine and friendship among the vineyards, beside the lake, days of light and liberty, wandering with friends who listened understandingly, days drawing to a close with the well-earned cheerfulness of supper, days which seemed eternal, although they were so short!

Now Thou hast no one with Thee, Jesus, called the Christ. These soldiers preparing that appalling bed, these thieves insulting Thee, those hounds awaiting Thy blood, are only shadows, cast by the great shadow of God. Thou art alone as Thou wert alone at night; the sun that warms Thy assassins is not for Thee. Before Thee lies no other day, no other journey; ended are Thy wanderings and now at last Thou canst rest; this skull of rock is Thy goal. A few hours hence, Thine imprisoned spirit shall be torn from its dungeon.

God's human face is wet with cold sweat. The blows of the chisels ring in His head, as if they struck at Him; the sun which He loved so much, symbol of the Father, just even to the unjust, now falls harshly on His aching eyes and swollen eyelids. His whole body aches with weariness, trembles in a yearning for rest which He resists with all His soul. Has He not promised to suffer as much as is needful up to the very last? At the same time it seems to Him that He loves with a more intimate tenderness those whom He is leaving, even those who are working for His death. And from the depths of His soul, like a song of victory over the torn and weary flesh, rise up the words, never to be forgotten by men, "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." (Luke 23:34)

NOTE: This was the highest word of the perfect humanity of our Lord, and therefore it was a perfect revelation of the heart of God. And how wonderful it is. The plea was not that willful sin should be excused. Such a plea our Master never urged. The men who nailed Him to His Cross were ignorant. They had no understanding of what they were doing. Therefore He thus prayed for them. In that plea we see the operation of the Divine justice, which is eternally reasonable. The judgments of God are always based upon His perfect knowledge, not of actions alone, but of the motives that prompt them. Yet the very motives, while the result of igorance, may be utterly unworthy and need the forgiveness of God. For this the crucified Lord has the right to ask, because in the deepest fact of His Cross He was there by that determinate counsel which was set upon the redemption of man at uttermost cost. Thus in the very prayer, as in the fact of the Cross, the elements of justice and mercy are seen acting in perfect harmony. That the prayer was answered there can be no question. Those men, in ignorance expressing the worst of sin, were forgiven by virtue of the mystery of the pain which He bore, that pain so much deeper than the physical suffering which they inflicted upon Him. All sins of ignorance are forgiven. It is only the sin against light, which has no forgiveness.

No more divine prayer was ever raised to Heaven since men have lived and prayed; it is not the prayer of a man, but of a God to a God. Men, who cannot pardon even the innocence of an innocent man, had never before that day dreamed that a man might pray for the forgiveness of those who were putting him to death.

For they know not what they do! Wrongs consciously wrought cannot be absolved without assurance of repentance. But the ignorance of men is so appallingly great that only a few really know what they do.

Jesus had taught what men should know; but how many knew it? Even His own Disciples, the only ones to know that Jesus was Christ, had been overcome by the fear of losing this last remnant of their lives; even as they fled away, they had shown that they did not know what they did. And even more ignorant of what they really did were the Pharisees, fearful of losing their preeminence; the Doctors, fearful of losing their privileges; the rich, fearful of losing their money; Pilate, fearful of losing his office; and most ignorant of all were the Jews, misled by their leaders, and the soldiers obedient to orders. None of them knew who Christ was and what He came to do, and why He was killed. Sonic of them were to know it, but afterwards, and they came to know it only through the intercession of the Man whom they were killing.

Now, at the point of death, He had confirmed His most difficult and divine teaching, "Love for enemies," and He could now hold out His hands to the hammer. The crosses had been raised; now they were piling stones about them to steady them under the weight, and were filling the holes with earth, stamping it down with their feet.

The women of Jerusalem approached the condemned Man with a pitcher. It contained a mixture of wine, incense and myrrh, which the executioners, out of the goodness of their hearts, imagined would dull consciousness. Those very people who were making Him suffer pretended as a last insult that they had mercy on that suffering, and by reducing it by the merest trifle they thought they had the greater right to demand that the rest of the cup of suffering be drained. But Jesus, as soon as He had tasted this mixture, bitter as gall, pushed it away. He would have accepted a single word in place of the wine, but the only one on that day who could find the word to say was one of the thieves whom they had dragged up to the place of the skull with Him.

The incense and the myrrh which they offered Him on that day were not perfumed like that incense and myrrh brought to Him in the stable by the Wise Men from the distant Orient. And in place of the gold which had lighted the dingy darkness of the stable, there was the iron of the nails, gray now, waiting to be reddened. And that wine which seemed poisoned so bitter was it, was not the genial nuptial wine of Cana, nor that which He had drunk the evening before, warm and dark as blood dripping from a wound.