
We Christians are supposed to feel bad today. Guilty as sin, because we’ve betrayed our Lord at every turn. Though on a Sunday we belted out the hymn, “Stand Up, Stand Up for Jesus,” on a Monday, with our actions and words and thoughts, we were often singing a different tune that sounded more like, “Duck down, duck down for Jesus, you cowards of the cross, and hide his royal banner, it’s time to cut your loss!”
On the Wednesday of Ashes, I ought to stir up an extra batch of fire and brimstone and sternly conclude, “The wages all of us deserve for our sin is death! And the death each one of us has earned is hell. Amen!” (Romans 6:23) Now that would be a memorable Ash Wednesday message that would cast a pall over each one of us like a funeral shroud!
Except that wouldn’t be the God-pleasing thing to do, the Biblical thing to do. If we use Ash Wednesday and our Midweek Lenten services just to beat ourselves up, just to make us feel bad because of our sins, just to put a spot of Ashes on our forehead or spiritually on our heart, then we really haven’t captured the true message of Lent. The true message of Christianity. The true, comforting message of Christ.
And that message? “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” Jesus spoke those words for Roman soldiers who knelt just feet away, gambling for his clothes. For passersby, gripped by ghoulish fascination, who paused to gawk at the grizzly scene unfolding on the place of the skull. For religious dignitaries, esteemed members of the Jewish Sanhedrin, who flocked to Golgotha like so many vultures. There they watched with glee while their hated enemy’s life ebbed away. While they watched, they blasphemed: “He saved others; let him save himself if he is the Christ of God, the Chosen One." (Luke 24:35)
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!” Jesus spoke those words for his disciples. For all of them who fled into the night in the Garden of Gethsemane. For Mark, who was so terrified he left his cloak behind and ran away naked into the darkness. For Peter who plucked up enough courage afterwards to follow Jesus to his trials. But when a mere serving maid confronted him, Peter’s courage melted away and was replaced by fear, by cursing, by denial.
“Father, forgive them for they do not know what they are doing!” Jesus made that prayer for you and me, too. Because he knew all about us, long before we were born. All about our irritating habits. All about our pet sins. Jesus, the Son of God, knew about even those sins we don’t want anyone else to know about. Even the ones we try the hardest to forget. The ones that pop up at times to torment our consciences. Jesus knows who we are and what we are like.
That’s why he went to his cross. That’s why he suffered —not just from nails pounded through hands and feet. Not just from cramps seizing his muscles and tying them in knots. Not just from dehydration or the partial asphyxiation that comes from crucifixion. Rather, on Good Friday Jesus suffered hell itself as God’s full punishment for sin. Your sin and mine. He was and remains “the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world.” (John 1:29)
But why would Jesus do this for the likes of you and me? Back in the Upper Room, Jesus explained his sacrifice. “No one has greater love than this: that someone lays down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13) Undeserved love, grace put Jesus on that cross and held him there until the job was done. Grace brings Jesus into our lives through the waters of baptism. Grace keeps Jesus in our lives as the Holy Spirit works through the Law and the Gospel on the pages of Scripture. Grace binds us to our Savior through his body and blood given us in His Supper.
That same amazing grace caused our Savior to pray, “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” He prayed that for you, for me. And that’s an Ash Wednesday message to tuck away in your heart.
Privileged to Serve,
Rev. Glenn Schwanke