Gospel: Luke 23:1-49
The most jarring thing about combining the joy of Palm Sunday with the agony of one of the Passion narratives is the speed with which we move from an emotional high to a terrible low. As we’ve spent the past many weeks on the journey to Jerusalem recounting the words and experiences of Jesus and his followers, that slow journey up the mountain seemed long. Yet in the span of just 25 minutes or so this morning, we quickly fell off the mountain into a valley of darkness.
From that moment referred to as the Triumphal Entry, we now find ourselves in a place not of glory, or celebration, or witnessing another incredible miracle. Instead we’re compelled to look upon the beaten, scourged, bloodied, humiliated Son of God hanging on a cross. The life spent extending compassion, healing the sick, offering hope to the poor, and sharing the promise of God’s grace now draws to a close in one of the cruelest, most unimaginable ways possible. The child whose birth was once heralded by a heavenly host is now the man whose death is heralded by jeering soldiers, scoffing religious leaders, and even through the derisive comments of another condemned man hanging alongside him.
One of the truly remarkable aspects of the moments shared in this passage is that even during his own suffering and those final agonizing minutes of his life, the words he spoke were concern for others. He was dying, yes, and at that point in time no one appeared to know what the future held. But what he spoke were words to ensure that very future – not his own, but that of others. They were words of hope. They were words of salvation. In responding to one of the condemned men hanging next to him, “Jesus’ last words to another human being before his death and resurrection were words of forgiveness.”[1]
The act of forgiveness is challenging. It’s admittedly difficult sometimes – or if we’re honest with ourselves, often – to show mercy and forgiveness to others. Perhaps the difficulty in extending forgiveness includes the forgiveness we may feel we need to give to ourselves. Nancy Westfield has written that when it comes to forgiveness, “Part of our inability to believe and trust the forgiving power of God’s grace and mercy is our inability to believe that other people deserve mercy. We want to judge whom God lets into heaven.”[2]
It’s not our place to judge who we feel God should let into heaven. It is our place to forgive, and to forgive, and to forgive. Forgiveness is not a one-time event; forgiveness is an action that we must do over and over. As Jesus tells Peter in Matthew’s Gospel, we shouldn’t forgive seven times; we should forgive “seventy-seven times.”[3] Even if we’ve been so hurt or so offended or angered by someone else that we simply don’t feel we can or should forgive, shouldn’t we at the very least expect of ourselves that which we seek from God? If we are to live our lives in the way Christ asks, shouldn’t we also offer that for which we ask?
As we walk the way of Christ we’re called to do difficult things, the difficult things of which Jesus often spoke and which the first disciples tried and struggled to accomplish. But try we must, and we must always strive to look at the world and our role in it through the eyes of Christ … to shape it as his hands and feet. We must try to find where God is actively and authentically at work in the world, and as we do it we must understand that what God may want from us and our community may not be what we want.
There may be disagreement and a reason to protest the call we feel. You only need read through the Scriptures to find where the patriarchs and matriarchs of our faith tradition sometimes disagreed with God, or argued with God, or even fled from God. The danger is to be found if there is never disagreement with God … if what we want never differs from what we think God wants … if God speaks, but speaks with our voice. As Timothy Kelleher, the founder and pastor of Redeemer Presbyterian Church in New York City, wrote, “If your god never disagrees with you, you might just be worshiping an idealized version of yourself.”[4]
Here I return to that difficult word, that difficult call: forgiveness. If we’ve been wronged and yet still avoid forgiving, the voice that stops us isn’t God’s; it’s ours. If there’s a gulf that’s developed between us and a friend, family member, or coworker and we don’t bridge that gulf or heal that divide, the voice that stops us isn’t God’s; it’s ours. If Jesus could speak words of forgiveness even as his life ended on a cross, can’t we do the same as we live through the anger, resentment, or bitterness we may feel in our lives? If Jesus can forgive during his own humiliation, can’t we do the same in our own moments of humiliation, arrogance, or pride?
We can always live as ones who have been forgiven, who are forgiven, and who will be forgiven. The challenge for each of us is to be one who forgives, from wherever we are and from whatever we are feeling. Jesus asks us to pick up our cross and follow him; may we be agents of forgiveness not despite the cross, but because of it.
Amen.
[1] Nancy Lynn Westfield, “Luke 23:33-43: Pastoral Perspective.” Feasting on the Word: Year C, Vol. 4, p. 332.
[2] Westfield, p. 334.
[3] Matthew 18:21-22 (NRSV).
[4] https://sermonquotes.com/sermonquotes/553-if-your-god-never-disagrees.html