The first two words from the cross

Sermon for Holy Monday

There are always so many things we could focus on during Holy Week. The upper room. The Garden of Gethsemane. Peter’s denials. The trials before the Sanhedrin. The trial before Pontius Pilate. The walk to Calvary. The crucifixion. And the burial. This year, let’s turn our attention to the seven precious words (or sayings) that Jesus spoke from the cross.

We’ll focus on Jesus’ words, but there were other words spoken at the cross, and it wouldn’t hurt to mention them briefly.

There was Pilate’s word, inscribed on a sign above Jesus’ head in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin. We abbreviate it INRI, Iesus Narazenus Rex Iudaeorum, Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews, words that Pilate refused to change, in spite of the complaints from the Jewish leaders, words that perfectly and, I might even say, poetically describe Jesus’ kingly act of giving His life as the ransom for the world’s sins.

There were the soldiers’ words as the quarreled over Jesus’ clothing, deciding in the end to cast lots for His one-piece garment, in fulfillment of Psalm 22.

There were the words of the chief priests, scribes, elders, and passersby who mocked Jesus cruelly and relentlessly. You who destroy the temple and build it in three days, save Yourself! If You are the Son of God, come down from the cross…He saved others; Himself He cannot save. If He is the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now if He will have Him; for He said, ‘I am the Son of God.’

And finally, there were the words of the centurion and the guards who witnessed the unnatural earthquake, the rocks splitting, and the graves opening the moment Jesus died, and the truth was undeniable, even to those idol worshipers, Truly this was the Son of God!

But we turn now back to the words of the Son of God Himself, the final words He uttered in His state of humiliation.

Only Luke records the first saying: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do.

For whom was Jesus praying? The “they” in the surrounding verses are specifically the soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross. They, of all people, really had no idea that they were nailing their God, their Creator, their Savior to the cross. They were doing their duty, carrying out the execution of a condemned criminal. Pilate knew better; he had spoken with Jesus and heard about His kingdom that is “not of this world.” He knew Jesus was innocent, and yet condemned Him anyway. Herod and the Jews who had called for Jesus’ crucifixion knew better. They had heard all about Jesus’ words and works. They had the Old Testament prophets crying out to them, telling them exactly who Jesus was.

Still, none of them really knew, really understood the ramifications of their actions. So Jesus prayed for them, prayed that His Father in heaven would forgive them. Now, a prayer for God to forgive is not the same thing as a declaration that God has forgiven someone. Praying for someone’s forgiveness doesn’t effect their forgiveness, doesn’t give them a clean slate before God or righteousness before God. That comes only through faith in Christ Jesus. But to hear that same Jesus praying for your forgiveness, as you’re nailing Him to the cross? That is the very word of Christ that breaks through stone-hard hearts and brings some to repentance, to trust in this Jesus as the One who now stands at the right hand of God interceding for us. His prayer for forgiveness is able to create the faith by which we’re forgiven.

And some of the Jews and some of the Romans were later converted; even the crucifixion of the Son of God was forgiven them in the waters of Holy Baptism, as Peter declared to them on the day of Pentecost. If Christ was willing to forgive those who tortured and killed Him, for whom will He refuse to pray, “Father, forgive”? Whom will He refuse to forgive in the cleansing waters of Baptism? It is Christ who pleads for us. Who will condemn?

The second word is also recorded only in Luke’s Gospel. While one of the two criminals who hung at Jesus’ side hurled insults at Him, the other rebuked his fellow criminal and said, the other defended Him and said, “Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation? And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said to Jesus, “Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom.” Jesus replied, Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise.

See how Jesus’ prayer for His enemies already had an effect on the thief hanging beside Him! See how the King of the Jews gives free entrance into His heavenly kingdom, and to whom He gives it. To the penitent sinner who confesses his sins and looks to Christ, not for earthly salvation, but for eternal salvation. The thief doesn’t beg for Jesus to help him down from the cross or give him earthly happiness or wealth. He knows he must pay the earthly penalty of death for his crimes. No, he looks over at Jesus, bloody and tortured and hanging on a cross, and he sees a King whose kingdom is not of this world, a King who is innocent before God and man, and yet willing to stay up there on the cross as the sacrifice for mankind’s sin, a King who was even at that moment paying for all the thief’s crimes, redeeming him with His own precious blood, and with His innocent suffering and death. There, hanging from a cross, that thief was reconciled to God through faith in Christ and became our brother in Christ.

The King gives an eternal place in His kingdom to this penitent thief. And He gives it to him “today,” immediately upon the sinner’s death. No purgatory. No paying for his sins before God or being further punished or cleansed after death. On that very day, at the moment of his death, that thief joined the soul of Jesus in Paradise, even as both their bodies rested in the tomb, the body of the thief, until the day of resurrection, the body of Jesus, until only the third day.

If Jesus was willing to pray for the forgiveness of those who mistreated Him, for whom will you not pray? For whom have you not prayed? And when you realize that you have not loved your enemies or prayed for your enemies as you ought, repent. And then remember the King of the Jews, hanging on the cross, not in defeat, but in victory, opening up His heavenly kingdom to all who repent and believe in Him, even to the worst criminals.

That’s why you need the atoning death of Christ and His perfect righteousness: First, to show you what true love looks like; second, to show you how you have fallen short of it and earned God’s wrath for yourself; third, to show how Christ made amends for your sins and makes you acceptable to God through faith in Him; and fourth, to show you how to love as your Savior did and does. That’s why we celebrate Holy Week. That’s why we remember the precious words our Savior spoke from the cross. Amen.