Daily Devotional For Wednesday, March 27, 2024

This is what we call “Holy Week.” It is the week we remember the last days of Jesus before His arrest, scourging, crucifixion, death and resurrection. So, between now and Easter I want to focus on 7 sayings Jesus made from the cross. Historians call them “The Seven Last Words Of Jesus.” Today, let’s focus on Jesus’ first statement He made from the cross. We find this in Luke 23:34, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do” (ESV). 

Think about this, Roman soldiers nailed Jesus to the cross with long metal spikes to beams of wood. When I read Jesus’ words above, it has to cause you to ask, “How in the world was He able to do this? Why would He do this?” Jesus was innocent and sinless and He was murdered by us and our sins. 

The Roman soldiers who nailed Jesus to the cross had done this many times before with other condemned prisoners. They felt no guilt, no remorse and had no concerns over what they were doing. They didn’t even feel the need for forgiveness. Here they are committing the most horrendous sin ever in the history of the world, and Jesus said they did not even know what they were doing. Can you believe that?

So, what does this tell us? You cannot grasp, understand, have any conviction of sin when you have no idea what is right and wrong, godly verses ungodly, holy verses unholy, righteous verses unrighteous and not sin and sin. To these Roman soldiers it was just another day at the office so to speak. This is a grave reminder that if we trust our own feelings or intuition, we can sin horrendously and not even know it. This is why we need God and God’s Word to tell us. 

Did these Roman soldiers deserve forgiveness? No. Do we? Absolutely not? Does the person who has offended, or hurt or harmed you deserve forgiveness, NO. But this is the thing with Jesus. He didn’t come to give us what we deserve, but what we needed. The Bible says this in Romans 3:23, “For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God” (ESV). It says this in Romans 6:23, “For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord” (ESV). In other words — all of us are sinners deserving to die in our sin so that we go straight to hell. That is what we deserve. That is not what we needed. 

This is why Jesus forgave the Jews, the Jewish leaders, the Romans and Roman soldiers as well as us — because all of us put Him on that cross. A prophecy some 700 years prior to Jesus makes mention of this in Isaiah 53:4-12:

“Surely He has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed Him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted. (5) But He was pierced for our transgressions; He was crushed for our iniquities; upon Him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with His wounds we are healed. (6)  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. (7) He was oppressed, and He was afflicted, yet He opened not His mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and like a sheep that before its shearers is silent, so He opened not His mouth. (8) By oppression and judgment He was taken away; and as for His generation, who considered that He was cut off out of the land of the living, stricken for the transgression of my people? (9) And they made His grave with the wicked and with a rich man in His death, although He had done no violence, and there was no deceit in His mouth. (10) Yet it was the will of the Lord to crush Him; He has put Him to grief; when His soul makes an offering for guilt, He shall see His offspring; He shall prolong His days; the will of the Lord shall prosper in His hand. (11)  Out of the anguish of His soul He shall see and be satisfied; by His knowledge shall the righteous one, My servant, make many to be accounted righteous, and He shall bear their iniquities. (12) Therefore I will divide Him a portion with the many, and He shall divide the spoil with the strong, because He poured out His soul to death and was numbered with the transgressors; yet He bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors” (ESV). 

If you know the Easter story, you can see so many biblical prophecies fulfilled here. So, back to Jesus’ first words from the cross. Jesus said this in Matthew 5:44, “But I say, love your enemies! Pray for those who persecute you!” (ESV). Did Jesus do this from the cross? YES! And this is why we should also. The people who were pouring out cruelty on Him were the very ones on His heart. Perhaps no one had ever prayed for these Roman soldiers before, but Jesus did. And He prays for you too when no one else would. 

Jesus said this in Matthew 6:14-15, “If you forgive those who sin against you, Your heavenly Father will forgive you. (15) But if you refuse to forgive others, Your Father will not forgive your sins” (ESV). We forgive those who hurt and harm us because we need God’s forgiveness, just like those who crucified Jesus did. We forgive because we have been forgiven and when we do not, it will become a poison that over time kills us with bitterness and resentment. Read the true story below of Italian Walter Bonatti:

“Many mountain climbers regard Italian Walter Bonatti as the greatest climber of all time. In 1954, when he was 24-years-old, he was the youngest member of the Italian climbing team that became the first in the world to conquer K2, the second tallest mountain in the world after Everest.

Wikipedia says, "K2 is known as the Savage Mountain due to the difficulty of ascent and the second-highest fatality rate among the 'eight thousanders' for those who climb it. For every four people who have reached the summit, one has died trying."

Mountaineer Reinhold Messner told the Italian newspaper La Repubblica, "Bonatti was just a boy from Bergamo who in a very few years became the best climber in the world," and that he had been envied around the world because he was "too ahead of the curve, too alone, too good."

But when Bonatti died in 2011 at age 81, his New York Times obituary focused much of its attention on a controversy surrounding the 1954 conquest of K2 that dogged him for the rest of his life. Although two members of the Italian team reached the summit of the mountain, Bonatti himself did not. He and a porter were responsible to transport oxygen tanks to a camp at 26,000 feet, where they were to meet the other climbers who were waiting for them. Then together the entire team was to make the final, one-day ascent to the top.

However, when Bonatti and his porter arrived with the oxygen tanks at the agreed-upon location, no one was there. Bonatti and the porter had to spend the night camped in the open, where they almost died from the cold. The next morning, leaving the oxygen tanks in the snow, they rushed back down the mountain, and the porter lost fingers and toes to frostbite.

A few hours after Bonatti and the porter had left the oxygen tanks in the snow, the other members of the Italian team appeared, took the tanks, and proceeded to the summit and to mountaineering glory. Later, Bonatti accused them of deliberately missing their planned meeting place on the mountain. The others denied it, and the Italian Alpine Club sided with them. From then on, Bonatti did much of his climbing alone rather than with teams, and for the next 50 years the controversy over K2 lingered in the climbing community.

Then, in 2004, one of the Italian climbers who had reached the summit of K2 essentially admitted in a book that Bonatti's version of the events was true. When Bonatti died in 2011 at age 81, his partner Ms. Rossella Podesta, age 77, said, "The K2 story was a big thorn in his heart. He could not believe that, even after all those many years, nobody had apologized or acknowledged the truth. This falseness has left a mark in his life."

In his own book, The Mountains of My Life, Walter Bonatti wrote, "My disappointments came from people, not the mountains.” Indeed, forgiving others can be more difficult than climbing the world's tallest mountains” (Source: Graham Bowley, "Walter Bonatti, Daring Italian Mountaineer, Dies at 81," N.Y. Times (9-15-11).

Proverbs 17: 9 says, ‘“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends” (NLT). Because Bonatti never forgave, he never ever got over the mountain of bitterness and resentment the rest of his life. It separated him forever from those other climbers. 

Questions To Consider

1. What do you think it took the crucified Jesus on the cross to say, “Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing?”
2. How often do you let your feelings make your decisions rather than your faith in Christ or how often do you let your own words of the words of other make your decisions rather than the Word of God? Why? How is that working out for you?
3. We have all sinned and all of us fall short of God’s standard to get into heaven on our won — perfection. That is why we deserve death and hell. Yet, Jesus Christ intentionally chose not to give us what we deserved, but what we need. What does that motivate you to do for Him and why?
4. Are there any “mountains” in your own life you cannot get over due to resentment, or bitterness or holding a grudge? What should you do to change that?
5. Who do you need to forgive no matter what they said or did to you? Why haven’t your forgiven them and will you now? Why or why not?

Scripture To Meditate On: Proverbs 17: 9, ‘“Love prospers when a fault is forgiven, but dwelling on it separates close friends” (NLT).

Prayer To Pray: “Dear Jesus, I know You did not live a conflict free life, especially at the end. Religious leaders were always after You, criticizing You. Roman soldiers were maliciously cruel to You. Yet through it all You forgave. Lord, help me to forgive those who have hurt me. Give me courage and the obedience to say, `Father forgive them because they do not even know what they are doing.’ I love you Jesus. In Jesus’ name, Amen!”

I love you Southside! — Pastor Kelly