I spent much of Holy Week this year contemplating a single verse from Luke's Gospel: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing" (Luke 23:34 NRSV). I began to think about the power of forgiveness: how hard it can be for those who have done harm to offer it and how hard it can be for those who have been harmed to go without it.
In my own life, I have done things I know I ought not have done. I have done them and gotten away with it. At times, I have felt remorse over my actions, but too often I have felt that I owed an apology to no one.
On the other hand, I have been hurt by the thoughtlessness of others. Something once happened to me, when I was a young man, that hurt me very deeply. I reacted as we all react when we are injured, I protected myself. I retreated, building an impenetrable wall around myself. I spent five years safe from harm, behind my wall.
Safe I may have been, but sound I was not. The person who had hurt me was not in my life, and I had no place to turn for the healing I needed. The hurt remained. As the years went on, I began to feel that I had gotten over the pain, but I've come to realize that I hadn't gotten over it, I'd merely gotten used to it.
It seemed, as Holy Week went on, that part of the mystery of Christ's saving work has something to do with Forgiveness. A long time ago, God was hurt by the selfishness of humanity. We thought we had gotten away with it, and came to think that we had nothing to apologize for. After all, we didn't do anything. The stories, if indeed they are true, happened at the very dawn of creation. Surely we have nothing to feel sorry about.
Likewise, God has been hurting all this time. Unlike my own hurt, God did not retreat, but tried again and again to connect with fallen humanity. God would reach out and humanity might respond for a time, but eventually they would fall away. Yet God kept on trying.
But it wasn't working. God had been seeking a solution, but could not find the way. Despite God's best efforts, the hurt was perhaps too deep.
That is where Jesus comes in. He came to us to show us a new way, but perhaps he also came to show God a new way. Wrapped up in their pain and guilt, neither God nor humanity could solve the riddle. Like Alexander slicing through the Gordian Knot, Jesus came and wiped away our failed solutions.
As he was being nailed to the cross, the latest victim in the ongoing war between God and humanity, he saw clearly the way out. He saw what had eluded God and humanity since the Fall. He saw people who knew no reason why they should feel sorry for anything and he saw God in pain. Though they didn't deserve it and didn't ask for it, Jesus saw the way through: "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing."
Perhaps part of the mystery of Good Friday is that Jesus found the way to reconcile God and humanity, and that way is Forgiveness. "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." By extending forgiveness, God could begin to heal. By receiving forgiveness (grace, by another name), humanity came to discover its fault. Only after that could reconciliation be possible.
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