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"FATHER, FORGIVE THEM"STILL TIME1. I’ve heard it said, and I believe it to be true, that if a Christian is not tested in his faith, he is no threat to evil. Nobody likes to be tested, but this is a fact of life as long as there’s evil in the world. Other persons need to know whether you’re going to choose for the good or for evil. Their welfare depends on it. 2. Are you going to choose for the good? Are you going to choose God as your supreme good? God needs to know. He has plans for you. He’s got hard work for you to do. Or will you choose, instead, for evil? People need to know. It’s in their best interests to get away from evil and protect themselves—while they pray that you come to your senses—while there’s still time. PERPETUAL QUESTIONS3. No one likes to suffer. Human beings, in truth, weren’t created to suffer. But we suffer because of evil. When our Lord Jesus returns in his glory, he will put an end to evil, and that will be the end of suffering. In the meantime, however, we do live in a broken world where suffering and testing are a reality. By choosing for the good, and choosing God as your supreme good, you will be tested and you will suffer. 4. By the gift and sacrifice of his own life, Jesus himself would be the living answer to the historical and perpetual questions of man’s innermost sorrow: Why am I being tested? Why am I suffering? The Son of God would do what never had been possible in human history. He would give testing a purpose. He would give meaning to suffering. BELONGING TO US5. Our Divine Lesson for today is called, “Father, Forgive Them”. These are the words of Christ, spoken during his passion on the cross. Jesus cried out, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” [Lk 23:34] 6. The cross didn’t belong to Jesus. It belonged to us! He didn’t deserve to carry it. We did! Though he was innocent, Jesus Christ took on the weight of sin in human flesh. Before he was born in Bethlehem of Judea, “a man like us in all things but sin” [SACRAMENTARY EP IV], nobody could make sense out of being tested or having to suffer. "I DON'T KNOW"7. Someone would say, I’m being tested! Another would ask, Why? I don’t know, he would reply. In the same way, someone would cry, I’m suffering! Another would ask, Why? For what? He would answer, I don’t know. 8. Our Lord suffered, and he was tested. First, the eternal Christ suffered the humiliation of a human birth in an undignified and unclean stable. Second, he suffered insults by hypocrites who condemned his goodness and his obedience to the Father. And last, Our Lord Jesus Christ suffered horribly at the hands of evil men who accused him, tried him, and brutally executed the innocent Son of God. THROUGHOUT HIS MINISTRY9. That Jesus was tested throughout his ministry—in the fullness of his divinity and humanity—we are certain. The Gospel of Luke tells us what happened immediately after Jesus was baptized by John in the Jordan River:
10. St. Paul, writing to the Church at Philipi, in Greece, had something to say about why Jesus was tested and suffered:
SERVANT-SON11. Jesus was tested and suffered because he accepted “the form of a servant”. He was the servant-Son of his heavenly Father. The Father sent Jesus to serve humanity for the sake of saving many. 12. We have said that Jesus was the servant-Son of his heavenly Father. In similar fashion, Jesus was the servant-brother of Israel. His sonship was made to be prodigal as if he, innocent though he was, had sinned himself. Recall in the parable of the prodigal son, that the father embraced his younger son while on the road. ROAD HOME13. This unusual and demonstrative act on the father's part was made possible because the younger son, dressed in rags and utterly destitute, demonstrated his contrition and obedience before his father. Unlike the older son who had obeyed his father but stubbornly withheld his heart, the younger son stripped himself of all pretense and gave his sorrowful and burdened heart as a free-will gift to his father—to do with as he pleased. 14. Not by intending to return home was the prodigal son made clean. The road home was not the proof of self-mastery and enlightenment, but a sign of a humble and obedient human heart. The sinful younger son was made clean, not by his own powers, but by the kindess of the one who received him. The repentent son served his father by going to him, kneeling before him, and asking for mercy. WHOLE WORLD15. For the sake of his own life, the sinner in the parable asked forgiveness of his father. Now consider that Son of God, who is himself the Divine Mercy, would plead pardon, not for himself, but for the sake of the whole world. And his mediation, made perfect through obedience in the flesh, would be heard in the terrible, heart-wrenching, ninth hour of the Friday that we call good: "Elo-i, Elo-i, lama sabach-thani?" which means, "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?" [Mk 15:34] 16. For our sake, Jesus was made to be the prodigal. He was made to bear the greed and waywardness of all humanity, our foolishness and wild extravagance, our reckless corruption and sinful hearts. Remember the words of the apostle: “Though he was in the form of God, (Jesus) did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a servant.” [Phi 2: 6-7] FOUND WORTHY17. Did the Son of God ask, Why am I being tested? Did he ask, Why am I made to suffer? Consider the words of Our Lord in the Garden of Gethsemane:
18. Because Jesus was good, and chose for the good at every opportunity—from the forty days of trial in the desert to the dark squalor of betrayal in Gethsemane—he was found worthy of bearing the sins of an ungrateful world in the hope that a few, a remnant, or even the many would return to him, fall at his feet and “give praise to God” [Lk 17:16-19]:
BEING ANSWERED19. So the questions Why am I tested? Why do I suffer? find their answer in Jesus Christ. He was tested, because he was a threat to evil. He suffered, because he was a threat to evil. 20. It’s the cross, you see. It was there that the questions Why am I tested? and Why do I suffer? were answered. I hesitate to use the verb answer in the past tense. It’s really not that the questions were answered, as if everything was over and done for all time. It’s that they are being answered—then in the hour of Christ’s passion, now in this very moment—and they will remain being answered throughout eternity. THESE MYSTERIES21. For grace is a living, dynamic and superabundant participation in the is, was, and ever shall be life of God. We may speak of mercy as the incarnation of grace in the sinful human heart. 22. And grace has everything to do with these mysteries: 1.) the Spirit of God who arrives and departs mysteriously according to God’s will [cf. Jn 3:8]; 2.) the Spirit of power whose fullness is never diluted or diminished [cf. Jn 3:34]; 3.) the Spirit of the Church whose presence and power has been reserved for this present age since the beginning of time [cf. Jn 2:10; 16:7; Acts 2:1-4]; 4.) the Spirit who is a “spring of water welling up to eternal life” [Jn 4:14]; 5.) the Spirit of glory who gives life [cf. Jn 6:63; 7:39]; 6.) the Spirit of righteousness and judgment [cf. Jn 16:8]; 7.) the Spirit who gives you “power to become children of God” [Jn 1:12]; and 8.) the Spirit whom you know “for he dwells with you, and will be in you (forever)”. [Jn 14:16,17] TRAIL OF SILVER23. My brothers and sisters, we are not merely speaking about the Spirit of God, but with infinitely greater importance of the Spirit of God. For the Spirit gave our Lord Jesus Christ the power to lay down his life of his own accord and to take it up again. [cf. Jn 10:18] For those who obey the Lord, obey him in the Spirit. 24. A common expression is “follow the money”. If you were in Jerusalem on that sorrowful Friday, and wanted to find the Christ, all you’d have to do is follow a trail of thirty silver coins. The blood money would lead you to the house of Caiaphas the high priest [cf. Mt 26:57], to the praetorium [cf. Mt 27:27], and to the cross of Golgotha. "BOUGHT WITH A PRICE"25. There, you would see what it purchased—a man nailed to the cross whose blood sanctified a people “because he poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors; yet he bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors”. [Isa 53:12] 26. St. Paul, writing to the Corinthian Church, said that “you were bought with a price”. [1Cor 6:20] The most perfect visual expression of this reality is the crucifix, easily the most recognized and beloved icon of the Christian world. The crucifix is unique; of all Christian artistic motifs, it most perfectly conveys the price that was paid for our salvation. ECHO IS HEARD27. There you see the handiwork of the ambitious Judas and the pitiless religious leaders. There you see the collapse of human expectations. You see how small and mean human beings can be. You hear a sob close by, laughter and derision in the background. You hear the soldiers rattling their dice cup to win his clothes. 28. Somewhere in all this, an echo is heard, a voice from the past or perhaps the future, a voice that’s always new and always old—Why am I being tested? Why am I suffering? And through the laughter, the games, the sobs, and the dirty side of humanity, the Spirit of God leads you to take notice of the centurion, one of the Roman executioners. SOMETHING TO SAY29. The Roman soldier knew nothing of the covenant between God and Moses at Sinai. He knew nothing of the Sermon on the Mount. He was not an apostle, nor was he a disciple. He was hardly a member of the crowd. None of these things, he was a representative of a great empire, one among many in “all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time”. [Lk 4:5] 30. And he had something to say about the bloody cross in front him and the dead man nailed to it. Something that the Spirit wants you and every Christian to hear, to remember, and never to forget. He said, “Truly, this man was the Son of God!” [Mk 15:39] How did he know this? What happened that made him realize the true identity of the Father’s beloved suffering servant? Was it his beauty? No, said Isaiah—
"FORGIVE THEM"31. Did the centurion say “Truly, this man was the Son of God” because the victim on the cross was lovable? No, said Isaiah—
32. How, then, did the centurion know that this Jesus on the cross was truly the Son of God? For that matter, how do you know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God? Why should you remember this and never forget it? Because it was on the cross of Golgotha, where he was crucified in the midst of criminals, and no where else, that Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.” [Lk 23:34] PLEADING FOR LIFE33. My dear friends, these words—“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do” [Lk 23:34]—are the words of a priest who is pleading for the life of his people. These are the words of a mediator who intercedes on behalf of those who cannot plead for themselves. “Once you were no people”, but through the high-priestly intercession of the Lord Jesus Christ, “now you are God’s people; once you had not received mercy but now you have received mercy.” [1Pet 2:10] 34. In every instance you behold a crucifix, you see the sublime representation of the saving gospel of Jesus Christ. Who can look at the crucifix and not see the great high priest in whose blood “we have confidence to enter the sanctuary…by the new and living way”? [Heb 10:19-20] GOD'S TIME35. Who can look at the crucifix and not see, in the flesh of Jesus Christ, the spotless lamb of sacrifice “led to the slaughter”? [Isa 53:7] Who can look at the crucifix and see anything else but the altar of the high priest’s own choosing? In God’s time, which is to say eternity, where the past, present and future are all one and the same reality, the saving event of the cross of Christ has never ended. 36. In point of fact, it never had a beginning. The cross of Christ, inseparable as it is from the Son of God, is, was, and ever shall be. Therefore, we confidently believe that:
GOING HOME37. In the fullness of the Lord’s human ministry, the ruler of this world came [cf. Jn 14:30], and Jesus laid down his life of his own accord [cf. Jn 10:18] in the Garden of Olives. He was tormented, crucified and buried. 38. Passing through the narrow gate of his passion and death, he took the way that is hard that leads to life. [cf. Mt 7:13-14] On this appalling, even terrifying night road, he resolved to go home. “But while he was yet at a distance, his father saw him and had compassion, and ran and embraced him and kissed him.” [Lk 15:20] HIGH PRIEST39. Not as a prodigal did the Father embrace his crucified son, but rather as the great high priest pleading for the souls of his unworthy people, to make of them “…a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, God's own people, that (they) may declare the wonderful deeds of him who called (them) out of darkness into his marvelous light.” [1 Pet 2:9] 40. In the dread dark night “against the principalities, against the powers, against the world rulers of this present darkness, against the spiritual hosts of wickedness in the heavenly places” [Eph 6:12], what did the high priest whisper to his anguished father? He said, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. [Lk 23:34] Having in mind the resurrection of the dead, the father “divided him a portion with the great…the spoil with the strong”. [Isa 53:12] THIS CONVICTION41. When you are tested, when you are suffering, you would do well to set your eyes on the cross of Christ and go there. You will be in good company with Mary, the blessed mother of Jesus. You say you are the Lord’s beloved disciple? [cf. Jn 19:26] Then take his words—“Behold, your mother!” [Jn 19:27]—into your heart and the Blessed Virgin Mary into your home. 42. Have this conviction in the depths of your struggles: Jesus Christ is truly the Son of God! Bind your sorrows to the Lord’s own on the cross. “For if we have been united with him in a death like his, we shall certainly be united with him in a resurrection like his.” [Rom 6:5] "HOLD FAST"43. Unite with Christ on the cross to make atonement and reparation for sins—the sins of your family and the sins of the whole world. Suffer the experience of others. The Lord still suffers for you, because you are not yet within the shelter of his heavenly Father’s mansion. In the meantime:
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