Guided to Forgiveness: Luke 23:33-34 - Ash Wednesday

And when they came to the place that is called The Skull, there they crucified him, and the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. And Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” And they cast lots to divide his garments. (Luke 23:33-34 NRSV)

Did they really not know what they were doing?

Reading Luke’s account of Jesus’s crucifixion, I feel like they knew full well what they were doing. The religious leaders had been plotting against him for years. But since it was illegal for them to put someone to death, they duped the hated Romans into doing it for them. Pontius Pilate knew that Jesus was innocent, but rather than using his authority to set an innocent man free, he condemned Jesus to die. The Roman soldiers and their Jewish collaborators hurl insults at Jesus as he suffers. The soldiers even cast lots and divide his clothing, so that they can take them home as trophies. I believe they knew what they were doing.

When I see people doing evil things, I believe they, too, know what they are doing. This holds true for dictators, drug dealers, shoplifters, and people who act like jerks.

But what if Jesus is telling the truth? What if they don’t know what they are doing?

Take the religious leaders, for example. These were like professional holy men. They knew the Laws of Moses inside-out, and their adherence to the laws and traditions of the elders to an astonishing degree. They knew the fifth commandment, thou shalt not kill. Yet, in their minds, killing Jesus was the right thing to do. It was God’s work. 

As far as the soldiers go, they were carrying out their patriotic duty to Rome. Being a soldier in the Roman army was a great honor. 

Jesus knew what they were doing was wrong. We know it, too. But I don’t think Jesus was making excuses for his persecutors.

What he’s saying is that sin has a way of distorting our moral judgment. In fact, sin most often disguises itself to us in what is right, necessary, and beneficial.

When Satan tempted Jesus in the desert, he didn’t tempt him to do bad things for no reason. Satan tempted Jesus with good, necessary, and beneficial things. Turn these stones into bread. Throw yourself off the pinnacle of the temple so that God will save you. Bow down and worship me and you will reign over all the kingdoms on earth. Satan offered Jesus a way to satisfy his needs, strengthen his faith, and fulfill his purposes. 

We all want power and control. We all want safety and security. We all want to be successful and gain people’s approval. But the sign of a devil’s bargain is when you decide that the ends justify the means. That it’s right if it’s right for me. That in this dog-eat-dog world, it doesn’t matter who you hurt as long as you come out on top. 

These are the sins that we are blind to, that we do not see beneath our anxieties and ambitions. Sin distorts your moral judgment, so that you deny your own sin, while at the same time being hyper aware of the sins of your adversaries and competitors; sins that are both real and perceived.

Wars, genocides, and slavery happen when you have a society that becomes so convinced of its superiority and so certain of the rightness of its cause that war, oppression, and killings lauded as righteous and even godly. 

And there is no blasphemy more offensive to God than to invoke his name and the teachings of his word as the justification for killing and enslaving your fellow human beings. 

Jesus’s persecutors believed they were doing God’s work. They were so convinced of their righteousness that even Jesus, speaking God’s truth, could not get through to them. But Jesus, instead of responding to them with the same degree of hatred they had for him, cries out for God to forgive them.

I need Jesus to forgive me when I’m ashamed, having known that I’ve done wrong, and suffering the consequences for it. But I need Jesus to forgive me when I’m not ashamed, when I’m convinced that I’ve done right, and when I have benefitted from those sinful words and deeds. Not only do I need him to forgive me, I need him to shatter the pride that keeps me from seeing the wrong in what I say, do, and believe. I need him to convict me; I need him to destroy the unrighteousness within me that I have nurtured and embraced, for only then can his righteousness and his faith and his hope live in me. 

Lent exists for this very purpose. It’s time to get real about unrighteousness and mortality; a time to throw off the rose-colored classes through which we see ourselves and our ambitions; a time to call of the dogs we sic on other people because we have judged them as sinful and inferior.

If you knew the full extent of your sin, you’d die. When God’s reveals your sin and convicts you of your unrighteousness, you experience a kind of death. But it’s a good and necessary death, because it leads to rebirth in righteousness. Because it leads to resurrection. Because it opens up a more hopeful future. 

There is no mortal fear for those who are forgiven in Jesus. So be guided to the cross this Lent so that Jesus can put to death but the unrighteousness of which you are ashamed, and the unrighteousness which you have embraced. Die with Jesus so that you may rise with Jesus. Take up your cross and be born again.