Last Words

Father, Forgive Them For They Know Not What They Do.

This Lent, at St. James Parish, we are reflecting upon the last words of Christ from the Cross.
I did a meditation on the words of forgiveness, traditionally the first words in the list of seven last words.

These first words, Father forgive them; describe the deep mystical work of the Cross. Here Christ shows us with his own body what it means to reconcile the world to God.
The reconciliation of the Cross is a cosmic work. The cosmic Christ is focusing here on the whole world.
Christ on the Cross becomes the truth of God’s great desire and love for humankind.
This love stretches out from the Cross through the human arms of Jesus to embrace all of us- saints and sinners, faithful and those who do not have a faith, and all in between.

Christ begins the work of reconciliation with forgiveness. And in these last words we see that Jesus is addressing the very heart of forgiveness. Forgiving that which seems unforgivable. Jesus’ forgiveness starts with the particular and moves out to the universal. Jesus forgives the ones who are killing him, he forgives the ones who have deserted him, he forgives all those through the ages who have maligned and degraded him and his followers and he forgives us. But this divine forgiveness is not confined by a particular moment. Forgiveness begins at the Cross and moves through time and space and into the present moment-right now.
How shall we live now that we have experienced the forgiveness of Christ?
What is God inviting in you? Are you being encouraged to forgive someone that it has been hard to forgive? Is that someone even yourself?
Forgiveness allows us to let go of all that doesn’t belong to us, and make room for all that does. We, too, have been lost from time to time and it was forgiveness that helped us to be found.
I pray that you will let yourself be found this Lent by the One who is seeking you.
Blessings,
Debra