Father Forgive Them

You may or may not be aware that last week was the beginning of the Lent season, a time of preparation for Easter, over the 40 days leading up to Easter Sunday. Many people choose to give up something over this time, often as a personal way of daily remembering the sacrifice of Jesus at Easter. As a lead up to this special time, we’ll take look at some of the Seven Last Words of Christ, and their significance for us today.

“Father forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.”

Jesus, even at the brink of death on the cross sought forgiveness for those that were putting him through incredible pain. Forgiveness is a difficult thing to give to those who we love, and yet Jesus’s great love extended even to his enemies. In forgiveness, relationships have the possibility of being restored.

In this, our very ‘me’-focused world, it is often easier to look at those who hurt or offend or even simply annoy us and build walls to protect ourselves from them. Or keep them from us. Perhaps the image of a ‘building a wall’ conjures up another image from our current political landscape. Perhaps that image is a symbol of our own default position when someone hurts us: to keep the ‘other’ out. I wonder if there are walls around each of us, which forgiveness would bust down… Is someone in mind this week who you may need to forgive?

How do we achieve that? Well…

We must keep our eyes on Jesus, who leads us and makes our faith complete. He endured the shame of being nailed to a cross, because he knew that later on he would be glad he did. Now he is seated at the right side of God’s throne!

Hebrews 12:2 (CEV)

Isaac Williams
Assistant Chaplain – Wyvern House