“Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (NRSV, Luke 23:34)

When Jesus reached the place where he was to be crucified, the Cross was laid flat on the ground.  Stripped of his clothes he lay down on the timber and stretched out his hands to receive the nails.

As he waited for the first blows, he looked around at those who were gathered about him.  Close by he saw the soldiers reaching for their hammers while others stood guard to keep a space clear around the Cross.  Beyond were the chief priests and rulers, a grin of triumph on their faces, and behind the jostling mob morbidly standing on tiptoe to see the nails struck home.

But there was someone else whom he noticed more than all of these – his holy Mother.  In the bitterness of her grief she had come to be with her Son for the last agonising hours of his earthly life.  As he looked up into her eyes, her anguish, too great to be concealed, must have called forth from his heart its inexhaustible store of compassion.

We might, therefore, have expected his first words to be for her, asking the Father that she might be consoled and strengthened to bear up under her sufferings.  Since she must have been his chief earthly care at that moment, would it not have been natural for him to give her priority in his prayers?

And yet, his first cry from the Cross was not for her at all, but for those who stood around him and had taken part in the plot against him.  You see, his Mother was assured of eternal salvation, they were not.  Therefore he prayed first for those whom he had come to save and whose souls were now in the greatest danger even though they themselves were unaware of it.

This, more than any of his sayings reveals his Divine realism.  He felt for the sufferings of others more sharply and deeply than any mere man ever could, but his infinite capacity for compassion did not make him sentimental.  He knew that, however heart-rending human suffering may be, human wickedness is a matter of far graver concern.

We are reminded of his saying, “Do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell” (NRSV, Matthew 10:28).  For the plight of a human being in pain is less disastrous than that of an immortal soul in peril.

We usually forget that.  For example, when we hear of some act of cruelty or violence, our concern is all for the victim: we may scarcely spare a thought on behalf of the perpetrator.

The first cry of Jesus from the Cross impresses on us the duty to find a place in our prayers, not only for those who suffer wrong but also for those who do the wrong, and especially for those who do wrong to us.

This word from the Cross is Our Lord’s own example of how we should follow the command he has given us, “Have good will towards your enemies; pray for those who persecute you” (Matthew 5:44).  So take some time to think if there is anyone who is on bad terms with you, and pray for that person.

We notice that Jesus said, “Father forgive them” without confining the word to those around the Cross.  So, just as his sacrifice of himself was for all, including you and me, that prayer for forgiveness also embraced us as well.

So urgent was it to him that we should be forgiven, that he put it first in his prayer, even before the needs of his Blessed Mother.  And in order to keep it constantly in our memory, he has given it a clause to itself in the prayer which he has taught us and commanded us to use: “Forgive us our trespasses – as we forgive those who trespass against us”.

How often do we repeat those familiar words without giving a thought to what they are committing us!  How easily do we affirm that our forgiveness by God, without which we shall be separated from him for ever, depends among other things on our own forgiveness of others!

And yet, to forgive willingly and wholeheartedly is one of the most difficult things in the world to do, because it goes against all our natural impulses.  We sometimes hear it said, “I can forgive but I can never forget”.  We may be quite sure that there is no forgiveness there; for willingness to forgive implies a readiness to forget.  It is so with God, it has to be so with us.

When the root of bitterness goes deep down into the soul, we cannot forgive in our own power.  We can only pray, “There is bitterness in my heart, O God.  I do not even want to forgive, but it is your commandment so I will try to want to forgive.  Pour into my heart a forgiving spirit”.  And if we then go on and take the practical step of praying earnestly for those who have injured us, the acid in our soul will be neutralised, and finally sweetened.

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

No, those who were crucifying Jesus did not know what they were doing.  They did not know that they were crucifying God.  And those words are true of us too.  When we sin, we do not know what we are doing either to our fellow human beings or to our Saviour.

A bad example set in childhood or youth or later years can never be recalled.  Who can put a stop to the ever-widening ripple of evil influence set in motion by a wicked action?  Who can tell how many others will be infected as it spreads on its way?

But that is only one side of the matter.  There is also the injury we do to God.  We may think that when we sin he is at the most disapproving.  That is very far from the truth.  When we sin we strike out at Our Lord.  Just as it was the sins of human beings which drew forth his first cry from the Cross, so now our sins grieve his Sacred Heart.  Then we take our place at the Cross, but it is not with his Mother: it is with his enemies.

True it is that we also do not know what we are doing: it is when we come to realise the meaning of our sins that we find their burden intolerable and we confess them with a broken heart.

Yet in another sense we do know what we are doing.  For we are Christians who have learnt and understand the way in which we should go.  We have very little excuse because we sin against the light.  Are we therefore shut out from the sheltering clause, “for they do not know what they are doing?” – so that the forgiveness for which Christ pleaded cannot apply to us?

We take comfort from those other words of Jesus in the Parable of the Prodigal Son.  For the Prodigal Son knew full well what he was about, but for all that, on his return in penitence and sorrow, “…while he was still far off, his father saw him and was filled with compassion; he ran and put his arms around him and kissed him” (NRSV, Luke 15:20).

So, true and heartfelt sorrow for sin always brings forgiveness, however wilfully and however often we have sinned.  God never wearies in receiving the penitent, never tires of waiting for the sinner to return.  And he loves you so much that he thought you were worth dying for in order that you might thereby be given the opportunity of going to him and of obtaining forgiveness.

Let us then, this Good Friday, take our place beside the Prodigal Son, so that for ourselves at least the Crucifixion of God’s Son may not have been in vain, and that we may be able to claim a refuge within his plea, “Father, forgive them”.