A Good Friday Meditation

Every year on Good Friday, at the church I attend, members of the congregation are asked to lead a personal meditation on the last words of Jesus before his death on the cross. 

Last year I was asked to speak on the words: Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing. Here is what I said:

My first memory of Easter isn’t of chocolate bunnies and colorful eggs, but of GoodFriday. I was four years old at the time, living in a small town in Alberta. Playing in the kitchen one day, I heard the announcer on the radio mention Calgary. I turned to my mother and asked: Is Calgary far from here?

 

Not very far, she replied. Why?

I want to go and see where Jesus died, I replied.

I was disappointed to discover that Jesus didn’t die in Calgary, Alberta but in a distant place called “Calvary” –  across the ocean, too far away to visit. Why was everything in the Bible so far away, in time and place?!

Fast forward 25 years, and I am (strangely enough) living in Jerusalem, Israel, teaching at the Anglican International School and studying at the Hebrew University. I have become familiar with many Biblical places I never expected to visit: Mount Zion, the Mount of Olives, Bethlehem, Nazareth. But one place I haven’t visited is Calvary: Why? The city of Jerusalem has changed so much in 2000 years that archeologists can’t agree on its exact location.

But I’m learning a lot. Among other things, I am learning what it is to be a Christian. As I desperately try to finish my thesis, I deliver a chapter to my Jewish professor for his comments. 

When I return a few days later to discuss any changes, he says: You’re a Christian, aren’t you? Christians believe in forgiveness… Well, I have a confession to make. I lost the envelope with your work in it. Can you bring me another copy?

Students today wouldn’t understand, but in the mid 1970s personal computers were unheard of. Photocopiers were new. It hadn’t occurred to me to photocopy the rough draft I had given him, so I didn’t have another copy. I remember rushing home in a panic, trying to remember what I had written.

But I couldn’t be angry now, could I? I was a Christian. Christians forgive…

When Jesus’ disciples asked him to teach them to pray, he taught them the Lord’s Prayer, and in it: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. And just in case the disciples didn’t really get it, he repeated:  Because if you forgive people their offenses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you.  But if you do not forgive people their offenses, your Father will not forgive your offenses.

For me, Good Friday is the hardest day of the Christian year because it makes me stand at the foot of the cross and view the crucifixion of Jesus the only way I can -  though the eye witness reports found in the New Testament gospels. These detailed accounts, which gripped me when I was 4, grip me still. After all these years, I still cringe when I read of the mocking, the insults, the scourging, the crown of thorns, the weight of carrying the cross, and the crucifixion.

So I am shocked when Jesus, nailed to a cross where he hangs in excruciating pain, cries out: Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.

Forgive them…? The onlookers hurling insults at him? The soldiers who have removed his clothing and now are gambling for his garments? Forgive all who have participated in bringing him to this horrible moment of pain and shame?

Like Jesus’ disciples, James and John, when rejected by a group of Samaritans, my natural inclination would be to pray for fire to come down from heaven to destroy all his enemies. But Jesus rebuked James and John. Fire and instant retribution are not his way. Jesus way is the way of forgiveness: Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing.

These words call us – Christ’s followers - to a life of forgiveness, too: Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us. Forgive me my sins as I forgive all who sin against me.