FATHER, FORGIVE THEM
Text : Luke 23: 32 – 34 & Acts 3: 17 – 19

A Sunday School teacher had just concluded her lesson and wanted to make sure she had made her point. She said, “Can anyone tell me what you must do before you can obtain forgiveness of sin?”
There was a short pause and then, from the back of the room, a small boy spoke up. “Sin,” he said.
ILL. Jamestown, VA, was the first permanent English settlement in the new world, & some of their religious practices were rather interesting.
For instance, they had 2 one-hour-long prayer services every weekday, one at 10:00 & another at 4:00. On Sundays their 2 prayer & preaching services lasted a total of 5 hours, & everybody had to attend.
Missing church was considered a sin & was dealt with severely. The penalty for missing a service was the loss of food rations for a whole day. A second absence resulted in a public whipping. And the penalty for missing 3 times was to be placed in the stocks daily for 6 months!
Historians tell us that research has not revealed anyone in the Jamestown Colony ever missing church 3 times.
During colonial days, in almost every colony, an adulterer could be publicly disgraced & branded on the forehead or on the cheek. Things are certainly different today, aren't they?
Now none of us would like to return to Puritanical punishments, but hasn't the pendulum swung too far in the opposite direction? We've emphasized love, grace, & forgiveness, but say little about sin, wrath, & punishment.
And the result is that many today view God as a doting grandfather who would never hold us accountable for our sins. In fact, the prevailing attitude today seems to be, "God will forgive us; that's His job!"
With that in mind, go back with me for a few moments to the evening Jesus was crucified, & listen to these words from Luke 23:32 - 34.
"Two other men, both criminals, were also led out with Him to be executed. When they came to the place called the Skull, there they crucified Him, along with the criminals one on His right, the other on His left.
"Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.'"
Nothing will hinder prevailing prayer more than an unforgiving spirit. A child was walking along a street and a large dog came out barking. She stood terrified. Soon a stranger came to her and said, "Come on, little girl, the dog has stopped barking." "Yes, she said, "but the bark is on the inside." She saw in the eyes of the dog an unfriendly spirit. We Christians are too civilized today to quarrel outwardly, but is there not sometimes a bark inside—an unforgiving spirit?
H. G. Wells wrote a story entitled, "The Country of the Blind." In it he tells about a hidden valley shut off from the rest of the world by high cliffs. That valley was inhabited only by blind people, & no one there had ever been able to see.
A lost & weary traveler stumbled into this country of the blind, & stayed with them for a while. As he lived among them, he found himself falling in love with a blind maiden, & began considering the possibility of marriage.
But the blind people thought that this man who could see was strange. They felt that his mind was cluttered & confused, distracted by his ability to see. So they insisted that if he wanted to continue living among them, he would have to have his eyes put out & become as blind as they.
For a while the man thought that he would be willing to do that. But one morning he got up & saw the beauty of the sunrise, the mist rising from the valley floor, the dew glistening on the petals of the flowers, & he realized that he could not stay in the country of the blind.
So he climbed out of the valley & returned to the world of sight.
When Jesus came into our world He saw things that the world was unable to see. He thought thoughts that the world had never thought. He did deeds that the rest of the world could not do.
And our world could not stand that. It tried to pull Him down to its own level. But Jesus refused to be a part of the darkness of this world.
But there the story loses its analogy, because Jesus did not run away from our darkness. Instead, He conquered it. And the place where that victory occurred was on an old rugged cross on a hill called Calvary, Golgotha, the "place of the skull."
The gospel writers say that Jesus spoke 7 times while hanging on the cross. And His first words were those that we read just a few moments ago, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."
PROP. Now we have heard & read those words many times, & they are precious to us. But I think that a lot of people misunderstand what He is doing. And it is important that we don't misunderstand.
A. So what is Jesus doing? Well, the answer is obvious, "Jesus is praying."
But wait a minute, men don't usually pray on crosses. We pray in gardens. We pray in church buildings & synagogues. We pray where we can get away from the noise & confusion of the world & think clear thoughts. But we don't pray on crosses.
You curse on crosses. You scream on crosses. You cry on crosses. You experience pain on crosses. You certainly don't pray to forgive others on crosses.
The Romans worshiped revenge as one of their gods. They were constantly waging war on countries that had done them wrong, seeking revenge.
The Jews felt much the same way. Part of their law was "an eye for an eye, & a tooth for a tooth, & blood for blood." You don't hang on a cross & pray for others. You especially don't pray for their forgiveness.
And yet, that appears to be exactly what Jesus did as He hangs suspended between heaven & earth, dying on the cross.
Have you ever wondered, "What kind of mind dreamed up crucifixion?" I look at some of the things we call "entertainment," the horror movies that are produced today, & I wonder, "Who in the world thinks these up?"
I grew up in an age when monsters were people like Frankenstein. You almost laughed at them because they were funny, not fearful. But today, all kinds of grotesque things parade before our eyes. Who sits around & thinks them up?
Who thought up killing by crucifixion - by driving nails through hands & feet into a wooden cross, & then under a hot, blazing sun watching the victim die a slow, agonizing death that may last for hours, & sometimes days? What kind of twisted mind thought up something like that?
Jesus hangs there, experiencing the result of man's twisted hatred, & He prays.
Now I want you to notice something. Luke uses an unexpected verb tense when he wrote, "Jesus said, 'Father, forgive them...'" The verb tense of the word "said" expresses "continuous, repeated action."
It was not just once that Jesus prayed this prayer. Again & again He prayed, "Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing."
I wonder how many times He prayed it? Did He pray it when they whipped Him with the cat o nine tails? Did He pray it when they thrust a crown of thorns upon His head, put a purple robe around His shoulders, & mocked Him by saying, "Hail, King of the Jews"?
Do you suppose He prayed that prayer as He was carrying His cross? Did He pray it as they were driving nails into His hands & feet?
Do you suppose He prayed that prayer when He looked at the angry faces shouting, "If you really are the Son of God, come down from the cross"? How many times did Jesus pray that prayer?
Luke says that it was not just once, but again & again He prayed, "Father, forgive them for they don't know what they are doing."
So Jesus was praying, but I wonder if we understand what He was praying for? I'm convinced that there have been some false conclusions about that.
Some have said that Jesus was praying for "a blanket pardon for all the people who participated in His crucifixion. He was just going to forgive every-body who had anything to do with it."
I don't believe that, because God never forces His forgiveness on anybody. He is not going to walk up to a cursing, mocking priest shouting "Crucify Him! Crucify Him!" & say, "I'm going to forgive you whether you want to be forgiven or not."
Jesus pays the price, & God offers forgiveness. It is free to any who want it. But He never forces it on anyone.
Others believe that Jesus is excusing their ignorance when He says, "...they don't know what they are doing."
So, some people think that we ought to keep quiet about Jesus; in other words, that we should never send missionaries to foreign cultures, because if we tell people about Him, then they are accountable to God for what they know.
So they're better off if they don't know anything. Then God will just excuse their ignorance. But that is not what Jesus is praying at all.
In Acts 3:17 19 we hear the words of Simon Peter as he preaches shortly after the Day of Pentecost. "Now brothers, I know that you acted in ignorance, as did your leaders. But this is how God fulfilled what He had foretold through all the prophets, saying that His Christ would suffer.
"Repent, then, & turn to God, so that your sins may be wiped out."
Peter is saying, "You acted in ignorance. No question about that. And when you acted in ignorance you fulfilled what God had foretold through the prophets. Christ had to suffer for the sins of all the people."
But He doesn't go on to say, "Jesus prayed for God to forgive you, so you are all forgiven." Instead, Peter says, "Now repent & turn to God so that your sins may be wiped out."
Some have even suggested that Jesus is actually rewarding those who crucified Him. They reason, "It was God's will that Jesus die for the sins of men, & these men were simply carrying out the will of God by hanging Him on the cross. So they deserve a reward instead of condemnation."
I can't accept that, either. That's blasphemy. They were not performing the will of God. They were performing the will of the evil one.
Granted, God took their terrible crime & transformed it into forgiveness & redemption. But that was not their doing, it was God's doing. They were crucifying the pure & holy Son of God. And there is no way we can say, "That was the will of God." They were obeying the evil one, not the righteous one.
So what is it that Jesus is praying for? When He prays, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they are doing," what is He really praying for?
To answer that we need to understand the word that is translated "forgive" in this verse. There are different words used in the NT for "forgive. One word means "to forget, to wipe out completely." God wipes away our sins & forgets them, never to remember them again. But that is not the word that is used here.
The word that is used here is found also in Matthew 19:14. There it is used when children are brought to Jesus, & the apostles try to keep the children away from Him.
Listen to it. "Jesus said, 'Let the little children come to me, & do not hinder them.'"
The word that is translated "let" in "Let the little children come..." is the same word translated "forgive" when Jesus said "Forgive them" on the cross. So what is Jesus saying? He is not saying, "Forgive the little children." He is saying, "Let them come. Don’t interfere. Don't stop them. Don't hinder them from coming.”
That same word is used again in Matthew 27:48-49 when the soldiers reached up with a sponge filled with vinegar to wet the lips of Jesus. It says,
"Immediately one of them ran & got a sponge. He filled it with wine vinegar, put it on a stick, & offered it to Jesus to drink. But the rest said, 'Leave Him alone. Let's see if Elijah comes to save Him.'"
There's that word again, & this time it is translated, "Leave Him alone." The word is used the same way in both places. "Don't interfere. Don't stop the children from coming. Don't wet his lips with a sponge."
That is exactly what Jesus is saying when He prays for them. He is saying to God, "Don't rush to show your wrath. Hold your punishment. Don't interfere."
How would a righteous God feel when a wicked world crucifies His Son? Well, how would you feel? I would be angry, & if I were God there would probably be a few lightning bolts flying in that crowd!
But when Jesus prayed that prayer, God held back His wrath. And even now the prayer of Jesus is still being honored. God is still holding back His wrath.
"Hold back the wrath," Jesus prayed. "Give Roman soldiers who drive nails into hands & feet a chance to repent. Give angry crowds a chance to get right with God. Give all the sinning & evil people a chance to be redeemed."
"I'm paying the price, Father. Hold back your wrath. Give them the chance to repent, to be cleansed, & made new."
Isn’t that exactly what Peter is telling us in 2 Peter 3:9 when he says, “He is patient with you, not wanting anyone to perish, but everyone to come to repentance”?
You & I are here today because the prayer that Jesus prayed almost 2,000 years ago is still being honored by God in heaven. That's why the sun shines on the good & the bad. That's why the rain falls on the just & the unjust. That's why sometimes evil people seem to prosper while good people don't.
But one day the nail pierced hands of Christ will be taken away & God's wrath will be unleashed. And what happens to us then depends on what we have done with Jesus.
For nearly 2,000 years His disciples have been going into the world telling people that God paid the price on Calvary's tree for their sins. For nearly 2,000 years they have been inviting people to come & be forgiven of their sins.
Maybe we'll have another 2,000 years to preach the message. Maybe we won't. Right now, though, that prayer is still being honored. Right now forgive-ness is still offered. God will never force it on you. But He offers it, He makes it available, & paid the price for it. It is ours for the taking!
That is why invitation time is so special because maybe, just maybe, there is someone here who only now has come to realize that Jesus died on that cross for you. He invites you, & He is waiting to see what you will do.
The invitation is extended. We pray that you will respond to it as we stand & as we sing.

Sermon Contributed
By Melvin Newland