The Crucifixion

This morning I listened to the beginning of Death by Love: Reflections on the Cross where Mark Driscoll drilled the fact that Jesus is not to be pitied; He is to be worshiped. Then this evening I read Jesus' own words to those who mourned and lamented for Him as He went to the cross:

" . . . do not weep for me, but weep for yourselves and for your children . . ." (Luke 23:28)

He went deliberately, and with mercy that we cannot fathom. Driscoll unfolds the vicious, excruciating pain that was inflicted upon those who were crucified. With that freshly imprinted on my mind, I was shocked to read Jesus say from the cross:

"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do" (v34)

No man ever spoke like this from the agony of the cross. He had human reasons to curse those who did this evil. He had divine reasons to curse those who were in the act of executing the Righteous One. Yet in infinite mercy, He prayed to His Father, "forgive them . . ." This is mercy that I cannot fathom, that all eternity will not be enough to exhaust.

We are dead people. We are like the thieves on the crosses next to Jesus, "under the same sentence of condemnation . . . indeed justly, for we are receiving the due reward of our deeds" (v40-41). We may revile and mock, as the first did, "Are you not the Christ? Save yourself and us!" Or like the other condemned criminal, we may confess "we are receiving the due reward of our deeds; but this man has done nothing wrong. Jesus, remember me when you come into your Kingdom" (v41, 42). And the King, who died willingly and mercifully on that cross still has authority to say, "Truly, I say to you . . . you will be with Me in Paradise."