Father, Forgive Them

The Wound

Jesus speaks this from the actual cross, worth holding as this whole book’s deepest possible picture of forgiveness, not offered after the wrong has fully ceased, but spoken in the actual, ongoing middle of it, genuine suffering still occurring, and yet, in that exact moment, genuine forgiveness already extended.

Notice for they know not what they do, the specific reasoning given, worth examining honestly, not because the actual harm was somehow lessened by this ignorance, but because Jesus’s own forgiveness accounted for the genuine complexity of human wrongdoing, worth holding as this movement’s own deepening picture.

This is worth holding as the actual source and model for whatever forgiveness this book’s third movement will ask you to extend, not your own, independent achievement, but flowing from, and modeled by, this exact moment, Christ’s own forgiveness spoken in the genuine middle of genuine, ongoing suffering.

Whatever wrong you are still, currently experiencing, receive today this deepest possible model. Father, forgive them, spoken not after the wrong had fully ceased, but genuinely within it, worth holding as the actual source this whole book’s exploration of your own forgiving will continue to draw from.