First Presbyterian Church
Marianna, Florida
Sunday, March 25, 2007
Sermon by Huw Christopher, Pastor

Scripture Readings: I Peter 2:18-25
                                 Luke 23:32-43
Sermon Title: “The Cross of Jesus: The Place of Forgiveness”
Sermon Text: Luke 23:34:  Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them for 
they do not know what they are doing.”

	“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing?”  If you 
had been in the place where Jesus was when he prayed this prayer could you have 
prayed it?  Certainly I am not sure that I could have done so. Such a prayer does 
not seem like the normal expected human reaction to the injustice, the abuse, and 
the suffering that Jesus was enduring.  If there is anything that seems to point to the 
fact that Jesus was not just human but also divine it certainly seems to be in the 
way in which he reacts to those who treated him unjustly, who abused him, and 
who made him suffer even though he was innocent.  It is for these very people who 
were responsible for his cruel death on the cross that he prays, “Father, forgive 
them for they do not know what they are doing.”  
During this past week as I have wondered again whether I could possibly 
have prayed such a prayer in those circumstances I found a number of questions 
coming to my mind.  Some of these same questions, as well as many others, may 
also have come to your minds.
	The first question was, “How is it possible that Jesus could pray in this 
way?”  As I thought about that question I saw I was not just asking how it was 
possible for Jesus physically to pray that prayer, but rather how could he pray that 
prayer and know that it would not be rejected by the Father?  As I thought about it 
the only way in which I saw it was possible for Jesus to pray this prayer was 
because he had looked into the very heart of God, and had seen that in the heart of 
God was a love that would be forgiving even those who had treated his own Son so 
cruelly.  Jesus prayed in this way because he had seen that there was a love that 
would not let people go however they may react to such love, and however 
negatively and harshly they may reject that love.  It is the fact that Jesus could pray 
in this way that is our assurance that however much we may have rejected God’s 
love and whatever we might have done to abuse the image of God’s loving nature 
in our own lives God stands ready to forgive us and to love us still. The willingness 
of Jesus to suffer the cruel death of the cross and then to pray in this way is our 
assurance that there is nothing that will ever cause God to turn away from loving 
us.  
On the salmon card in the baskets on the table in the narthex and near the 
fellowship hall are words of the hymn of Charles Wesley that I knew as I was 
growing up in Britain and which some of you may know even though it is not in 
our current or former Presbyterian hymnbooks. The opening stanza invites us to 
stand beneath the cross and to place ourselves there as those who crucified Jesus 
and then to hear Jesus pray for our forgiveness so that we can ask, “And can it be 
that I should gain an interest in a Savior’s blood? Died He for me who caused his 
pain?  For me who him to death pursued?”  As we pose such questions and listen to 
the prayer of Jesus for us from the cross we find ourselves affirming with Charles 
Wesley, “Amazing love! How can it be, that Thou my God shouldst die for me?”  
Jesus was able to pray, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what 
they are doing,” because he knew that the heart of God was filled with forgiving 
love, far beyond anything anyone could except or that anyone could deserve. It is 
in the assurance of such love that Sunday by Sunday as we gather here for worship 
that we have confidence to confess our own sin and our own failure.
	As I reflected on this prayer of Jesus, though, I found myself asking another 
question, “Why would Jesus pray in this way?”  Even if he knew God to be filled 
with forgiving love why did he want God to be forgiving to those who had treated 
him so cruelly?  I thought of Jonah and how he had become so upset when God 
had been forgiving to the people of Ninevah when they had repented.  Even though 
he knew that God was a forgiving God Jonah did not want God to forgive his 
enemies, the people of Ninevah. As I thought about the question of “Why Jesus 
would pray in this way,” I came to recognize that not to pray in this way would 
have been a denial of the very purpose for which he had come to earth.  We all 
know the familiar words that we have heard again this morning that God so loved 
the world that he gave his only Son, and that God did not send the Son into the 
world to condemn the world but that through him the world might be saved.  (John 
3:16-17)  Jesus comes into the world not because the world and human beings 
were perfect but because they deserved to be condemned for the way in which they 
had turned away from God and from God’s ways.  Instead, though, of coming to 
condemn the world Jesus in the love and the power of God comes to forgive and to 
save and to make whole, and to assure men and women that through his forgiving 
love God offers to all people a new and a right relationship with himself.  Though 
human beings had built up walls of separation from God as they had chosen their 
own ways rather than God’s ways for their lives God recognized that the only way 
in which that wall of separation could be broken down would not be by adding 
bricks of resentment and stones of hostility and planks of condemnation, but by 
undermining all that divided and separated human beings from him by the 
dynamite of love and forgiveness.  God recognized that even though he had done 
nothing wrong, and had done nothing to break the relationship the only way in 
which that relationship could be restored would be if he as the innocent One was 
ready to forgive.  As Jesus prays on the cross so he is assuring all who will hear 
him that forgiving love is still available.  Our anthem has also assured us that it a 
love which will never let us go.  Whenever we turn to God we can be assured we 
will be welcomed, we will be forgiven, we will be loved, and that we can know a 
new relationship with our Creator as if we had never sinned, and as if we had never 
turned away from him.
	Peter in the words that we have heard speaks of the way in which Jesus has 
left us an example so that we should follow in his steps.  Yet how slow have 
people been to follow his example?  How many have lived lives of bitterness, of 
anger and of inner turmoil because they have refused to take that God-like first 
step of showing forgiving love to those who have hurt them?  How many people 
have lived in relationships of tension, even within their own families, because they 
were unwilling to be loving and forgiving to those who have let them down?  How 
many people have cut themselves off from the fellowship of the church and all that 
it may have meant to them because they were unable to forgive someone who had 
spoken a harsh word against them, sat in their seat, or had treated them in ways 
they thought were unfair?  How many people have denied themselves the 
opportunity for beautiful, meaningful relationships with other people because they 
have said, “I cannot forgive them?”  Is it that they cannot forgive, or that they are 
unwilling to forgive? 
	Jesus prayed as he did because he recognized that that was the only hope 
that any one of those people had that they might know a loving and fulfilling 
relationship with their Creator God in the future. How much would the tensions 
and broken relationships of our world be erased if more people were ready to 
follow his example of reaching out to others with forgiveness?
	Jesus prayed as he did because he had seen the loving, forgiving heart of 
God, and knew that God desired a new and loving relationship with all whom he 
had made, and that the only way that that would be possible would be if God was 
still willing to forgive even those who were treating him so harshly. The third 
question that came to my mind as I reflect on this prayer of Jesus was, “What 
difference did it make in the lives of those who first heard it?”  Certainly the way 
in which the leaders of the people scoffed at him even after he had prayed for them 
seems to say that it had little impact.  Yet was it hearing that prayer that gave that 
second man the confidence to say, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your 
kingdom”?  I do not know the answer to that question. I also do not know the 
whole impact that the prayer of Jesus may later have had upon those who first 
heard it.  But as I reflected on this question I came to recognize that far more 
important than the impact it had upon them is the impact that it has on us still 
today.  
As we stand beneath the cross of Jesus and hear his prayer are we reminded 
of the example that Jesus has left to us? Are we also filled with the assurance  that 
is reflected in our affirmation of faith when it says, “that our Lord, though 
innocent, submitted himself to condemnation by an earthly judge so that through 
him we ourselves, though guilty, might be acquitted before our heavenly Judge.”?  
Had Henry Francis Lyte come to appreciate the significance of this prayer of Jesus 
and all of the assurance that he sought to give through it when he himself prays, 
“Hold Thou Thy cross before my closing eyes; shine through the gloom and point 
me to the skies; Heaven’s morning breaks and earth’s vain shadows flee; in life, in 
death, O Lord, abide with me”?  As we see that cross and hear from it the prayer of 
Jesus we find that assurance that enables us to sing with Charles Wesley, “No 
condemnation now I dread; Jesus, and all in him, is mine; alive in him, my living 
Head, and clothed in righteousness divine, bold I approach the eternal throne, and 
claim my crown, through Christ my own.”  This is the assurance and the boldness 
that God would want to us to know as we stand beneath the cross of Jesus and hear 
him pray.  This is the assurance and boldness that God wants us to know as we 
stand beneath the cross of Jesus and come to know for ourselves that this truly is 
the place of forgiveness.  With the confidence and boldness that God alone gives to 
us because of the way in which Jesus prayed from the cross let us claim again the 
assurance that his prayer brings to us using the words of affirmation printed in the 
bulletin. Let us stand and affirm our faith together..

* THE AFFIRMATION OF FAITH:                from The Study Catechism of the  
                                           Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) Questions 42, 43 and 45	

Leader: 	What do we affirm when we say that Jesus Asuffered under Pontius 
                   Pilate@?
Unison:			First that our Lord was humiliated, rejected, and abused by the 
temporal authorities of his day, both religious and political.  
Christ thus aligned himself with all human beings who are 
oppressed, tortured, or otherwise shamefully treated by those 
with worldly power.  Second, and even more importantly, that 
our Lord, though innocent, submitted himself to condemnation 
by an earthly judge so that through him we ourselves, though 
guilty, might be acquitted before our heavenly Judge.
 Leader:	What do we affirm when we say that Jesus was Acrucified, dead, and
          		 buried@?	
Unison:			That when our Lord passed through the door of real human 
				death, he showed us there is no sorrow he has not known, no 
grief he has not borne, and no price he was unwilling to pay in 
order to reconcile us to God.
Leader:		Why did Jesus have to suffer as he did?
Unison:			Because grace is more abundant B and sin more serious B than 
we suppose.  However cruelly we may treat one another, all sin 
is primarily against God.  God condemns sin, yet never judges 
apart from grace.  In giving Jesus Christ to die for us, God took 
the burden of our sin into God=s own self to remove it once and 
for all. The cross in all its severity reveals an abyss of sin  
swallowed up by the suffering of divine love.    
	


 
 
 
 


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