{"id":882,"date":"2019-04-16T20:46:41","date_gmt":"2019-04-16T19:46:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/?page_id=882"},"modified":"2019-04-16T20:46:41","modified_gmt":"2019-04-16T19:46:41","slug":"luke-2334-the-word-of-forgiveness","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/?page_id=882","title":{"rendered":"Luke 23:34 The Word of Forgiveness"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Introduction<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What should the Home Secretary do with\nShamima Begum? Until approximately four years ago she was an unknown pupil of\nBangladeshi background at Bethnal Green Academy\nin east London; but at the age of fifteen she went off to Syria with two\nof her fellow pupils and another young woman to join the Islamic State terrorist organisation. At the time of her departure the rapid\nadvancement of its evil empire was terrifying millions of people in the Middle\nEast, especially the people of minority ethnic or religious groups in the\nregion. The level of barbarity in their behaviour was shocking to any civilised\npeople of all faiths and none. Fast forward to 2019 and the territory they\ncontrol in eastern Syria is restricted to a less than a square mile, though\nthey occupy a much larger region of mountainous caves in central Syria where\nseveral thousand fighters are said to be well-set with their equipment in\ndifficult terrain for the Syrian Army and their allies to retake. It is likely\nthat remote parts of nearby Iraq also contain some of their fighters. However,\nthere are in Kurdish prison camps several thousand children and family members\nof IS fighters.  What should happen to\nthem, not least when they appear to have no regrets for their actions like\nShamima Begum? Do we agree that she should be stripped of her citizenship and\nleft to an uncertain fate?  After all she\nwas certainly happy for other men, women and children to suffer horribly and\ndie appalling deaths. Or do we suggest that we have different values and insist\non bringing her home to face possible justice if there are legal grounds for\ncharges? These kinds of questions are very real and pressing issues and we\ncannot avoid them. Sometimes we have a dilemma between what our heads say and\nour emotions. As Christians our values are not the same as some of our fellow\ncitizens because we want to ask how would Jesus want me to think through this\nsituation and, where appropriate, act in response to it? To ask the question doesn\u2019t\nalways lead to a clear sense of direction as on many occasions life gets very\ncomplicated. However, there are times like this example I will mention from a\ndecade ago that stayed in my mind and reminded me that in following Jesus we do\nhave higher standards and values to follow. \n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

    One of the first news stories of 2008 on\nthe BBC News website was the sad account of how the British Armed Forces have\nofficially recognised its first recognised Satanist. Naval technician Chris\nCranmer, a Scot from Edinburgh, a crew member on HMS Cumberland, based at\nDevonport Naval Base in Plymouth, will be allowed to perform satanic rituals on\nboard the vessel. Mr Cranmer like other registered members of this religion live by the Nine Satanic Statements, which\ninclude “Satan represents indulgence instead of abstinence”,\n“Satan represents vengeance instead of turning the other cheek” and\n“Satan represents all of the so-called sins, as they all lead to physical,\nmental, or emotional gratification” [BBC News 1.1.08] 2,000 years ago on a hillside outside the city wall of\nJerusalem were three crosses the outer two were occupied by men convicted of\narmed robbery, extreme violence, possibly even murder. The occupant of the\ncentral cross was convicted of being the Messiah, the King of the Jews<\/em> (Luke 23:38). To the people who were humanly\nresponsible for putting Him on the cross He had these words to say in Luke\n23:34: Jesus <\/em>said, Father, forgive them, for they do not know what\nthey are doing<\/em>.<\/em> Could there be a bigger contrast with the\nbeliefs of Chris Cranmer and his fellow Satanists than the words of Jesus. In\nour world today there are two main religions Christianity and Islam, the latter\nword means \u201csubmission\u201d. In the \u2018model\u2019 Islamic regimes in Saudia Arabia, Iran,\nSudan and Afghanistan countries marked by brutality and cruelty where people of\nother faiths at best are second class residents denied basic legal and\npolitical rights, let alone freedom of worship and association and at worst\nlive in fear and risk murder by the authorities or Muslim mobs. In such a world\nwe hear the words of Jesus: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they\nare doing. <\/em> The way proclaimed\nby Jesus is so counter cultural that some feel inclined to ridicule it with\nblasphemous films like The Life of Brian<\/em>\nin which actors like John Cleese who regard our faith and our Lord with utter\ncontempt think they can have a laugh at our Lord\u2019s expense; other people view\nthe message of Jesus and the way of discipleship to which He calls us as too\nhard a path to follow as the message is too difficult to live in secular\ntwenty-first century Britain. At the time of painting his famous work The Last Supper <\/em>Leonardo da Vinci was\napparently very annoyed with one of the workman engaged on the task and came\nout with some harsh words to the man. Shortly afterwards he went back to the\npainting and sought to paint the face of Jesus, but could not do it with\nbitterness in his heart. Only after he had sought the man\u2019s forgiveness could\nhe resume his work successfully.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

1. The Revelation\nof God\u2019s Nature<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

We offer apologies for minor\nslights such as bumping into a stranger in a crowd even when our actions were\ntotally unintentional. As the degree of offence increases the more necessary it\nis to offer a heartfelt apology. Yet here there has been the betrayal of a\nfriend by Judas with a kiss; the abandonment by His followers when He sought\ntheir conscious presence as He prayed in the garden of Gethsemane; the denial\nof Peter who declared to a servant girl that he was not in any way associated\nwith Jesus; the self-centredness of Caiaphas and the other Jewish leaders who\nrequested the Roman governor to put Him to death; the cowardice of Pilate in\nagreeing with their request; the brutality of Roman soldiers who carried out\nthe scourging and mocking taunts and then the act of crucifixion itself; the\nsin of billions of His followers in each generation, including your sin and\nmine that necessitated His going to the cross in order to procure our salvation\n\u2013in such a context each of the above requires to confess that we were\nresponsible, yet for each of us Jesus pleads on our behalf: Father, forgive them, for they do not know\nwhat they are doing. <\/em>This amazing utterance was spoken repeatedly,\nliterally \u2018Jesus kept on saying\u2019 Father\nforgive them…<\/em> [Greek imperfect tense]; over the process of His\nhumiliation Jesus continued to utter these words to the undeserving sinners who\nwere responsible for their misconduct.  Forgive them <\/em>[aorist imperative] is a\nrequest for a once for all time forgiveness, which we understand as taking\nplace when we are converted, that time when we ask Jesus into our lives as Lord\nand Saviour. For they do not know <\/em>[perfect\ntense] is a past action with ongoing future consequences. In essence Jesus was\nsaying, the people responsible for putting Me on the cross have not grasped the\nsignificance of what they have done, nor the seriousness of their wrongdoing\nand the ongoing consequences of their actions.  <\/em>  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

  \nThe prayers of Jesus recorded in the Gospels are brief, mostly single\nsentences and all address God as Father. In the same way Jesus would instruct\nHis disciples to pray to God in this manner: this is how you should pray: Our Father in heaven<\/em> (Matthew 6:9).\nGod is our creator, our sovereign Lord and King, the sustainer of His world and\nthe judge of all humankind. Yet it is as \u2018Father\u2019 that we are granted a\nrevelation of His nature that led Him to send His beloved Son to die as our\nSaviour on the Cross. The Fatherhood of God is not a bland vague utterance of\ngeneral interest to humanity in general regardless of whether they desire a\nrelationship with the living God or not; instead it is a truth of vital\nsignificance to the men and women, boys and girls who have reached out by faith\nto receive His amazing promises and the hope of eternal life. No wonder Paul\nsays: What\nthen, shall we say in response to this? If God is for us, who can be against\nus? He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all \u2013how will He\nnot also, along with Him, graciously give us all things?<\/em> [Romans\n8:31-32] In a brutal violent world Jesus sought to reveal to us the heart of\nthe Father towards His children. Hans Egede was\na pioneer Lutheran missionary from Denmark sent to labour in Greenland. His\nearly work begun in 1721 continued to 1733 seeing precious little response to\nhis preaching. It was more than eight years before a single person responded to\nthe gospel. Moravian preacher Anthony Ulrich told the story in 1733 to Moravian\nmissionaries in training at Herrnhut, Saxony, Germany. Young missionaries\nMatthew Stach and Christian David volunteered to lead the mission work. As they\nsettled down among the people they resolved at first to be very systematic in\ntheir method of preaching the Gospel; and to this end, like Egede before them,\nthey expounded to the simple Eskimo folk the whole scheme of systematic\ntheology, from the fall of man to the glorification of the saint. The result\nwas dismal failure. At last the Brethren struck the golden trail. The story is\na classic in the history of missions. As John Beck, one balmy evening in June,\nwas discoursing on things Divine to a group of Eskimos, it suddenly flashed\nupon his mind that, instead of preaching systematic theology he would read them\nan extract from the translation of the Gospels he was now preparing. He seized\nhis manuscript. “And being in an agony,” read John Beck, “He\nprayed more earnestly, and His sweat was as it were great drops of blood\nfalling down to the ground.” At this Kajarnak, the brightest in the group,\nsprang forward to the table and exclaimed, “How was that? Tell me that\nagain, for I, too, would be saved.” The first Eskimo was touched. The power was the story of the Cross<\/strong>.\nFrom that moment the Brethren altered the whole style of their preaching.\nInstead of expounding systematic theology, they told the vivid human story of\nthe Via Dolorosa, the Crown of Thorns, the Scourging, and the Wounded Side. The\nresult was brilliant success. The more the Brethren spoke of Christ the more\neager the Eskimos were to listen. In this good work the leader was Matthew\nStach. He was ordained a Presbyter of the Brethren’s Church. He was officially\nappointed leader of the Greenland Mission. Egede returned in 1741 to lead the\nChristian Church in Greenland till his death in 1758. [J.E. Hutton, History of the Moravian Church <\/em>ch.6]  For God so\nloved the world<\/strong> that He gave His only begotten Son that whoever believes in\nHim shall not perish but have everlasting life <\/em>[John 3:16]<\/p>\n\n\n\n

2. The Revelation of Christ\u2019s Mission<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The mission of Jesus was planned\nin eternity and prophesied many centuries before He was born in Bethlehem.\nIsaiah 53 records the extraordinary account of Jesus\u2019 suffering on the cross. 3<\/sup><\/em> <\/sup><\/em>He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows,\nand familiar with suffering. Like one from whom men hide their faces he was despised,\nand we esteemed him not. 4<\/sup>Surely he took\nup our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by\nGod, smitten by him, and afflicted.5<\/sup> But he\nwas pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the\npunishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.\n6<\/sup>We all, like sheep, have gone\nastray, each of us has turned to his own way; and the Lord has laid on Him the\niniquity of us all. 7<\/sup>He was oppressed and afflicted,\nyet he did not open his mouth; he was led like a lamb to the slaughter, and as\na sheep before her shearers is silent, so he did not open his mouth. 8<\/sup> By oppression and judgment he was taken away. And\nwho can speak of his descendants? For he was cut off from the land of the\nliving; for the transgression of my people he was stricken. 9<\/sup> He was assigned a grave with the wicked, and with the\nrich in his death, though he had done no violence, nor was any deceit in his\nmouth.10<\/sup>Yet it was the Lord’s will to crush\nHim and cause Him to suffer, and though the Lord makes His life a guilt\noffering, He will see His offspring and prolong his days, and the will of the\nLord  will prosper in his hand.11<\/sup>After the suffering of His soul, He\nwill see the light of life and be satisfied; by His knowledge my righteous servant\nwill justify many, and He will bear their iniquities.12<\/sup>\nTherefore I will give him a portion among the great, and He will divide the\nspoils with the strong, because He poured out his life unto death, and was\nnumbered with the transgressors. For He bore the sin of many, and made intercession for the transgressors<\/strong>.\n<\/em>Throughout His life Jesus prayed for other people and taught other\npeople how to pray. He would get up before dawn to find a quiet place for prayer;\nafter the feeing of the \u2018five thousand\u2019 he would go alone up a hillside for a\ntime alone with God. With a heart of compassion He would restore to life the\nson of the widow at Nain; with tears and anguish of heart He would cry out for\nHis friend Lazarus at his tomb and then cry Lazarus\ncome out.<\/em> He was the Lord of Glory yet revealed on earth that total\ndependence on the Father bringing the needs of other people before the living\nGod, confidence that His Father in heaven would heed His earnest appeals. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

 In His prayer here He continued with the work\nof mediating between God and humankind. I Timothy 2:5 declared that: there is one\nGod and one mediator between God and men, the man Christ Jesus, who gave\nHimself as a ransom for all men.<\/em> Hebrews 2:17 states that Jesus is a\nmerciful\nand faithful high priest in service to God <\/em>[so that] he could\noffer a sacrifice that would take away the sins of the people. <\/em>[NLV]\nNow in heaven Hebrews 7:25 records: therefore He is able to save completely those who come\nto God through Him, because He always <\/strong>lives\nto intercede for them.<\/em> Jesus in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew\n5:44 urged His followers to: Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.\n<\/em>Now on mount Calvary in His darkest hour, from the human point of view\nJesus repeatedly asks: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they\nare doing.<\/em> He could easily have asked the Father for an angel army\nto wipe out the Roman authorities in Jerusalem, together with the iniquitous\nJewish priests led by Annas and Caiaphas. Instead He lived in His toughest\nmoments what he had called us as His followers to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

     Mennonite preacher John Drescher recalled\na Laymen\u2019s Missionary convention held in Chicago in which a missionary told the\nstory of a holy man in India. The holy man had come to enquire of the\nmissionary the nature of his message that day. The reply was this saying from\nthe lips of Jesus: Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they\nare doing. <\/em>The holy man listened with increased agitation. At the\nend of the message he told the missionary: \u2018get out of here, get out of India!\nYou will convert all our people if you talk to them that way. In our religion\nwe have no story of love like that.\u2019 No other religion has such a focal point.\nIts leaders may have miraculous births; may carry out miraculous deeds; may\nproclaim many wise sayings but Jesus alone through His sacrifice on Calvary was\nboth priest and offering, as mediator reconciling God to us and us to God.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

3. The Revelation of Our Condition<\/strong>\n\nJeremiah 17:9 The heart is deceitful above all things and\nbeyond cure. Who can understand it? <\/em>Were the people complicit in the crucifixion of Jesus\nresponsible for their actions? Yes they were! Their motivations were mixed. The\nSadducees were jealous at the popularity of Jesus and the fact that the\nordinary people heard Him gladly. They were convicted by His holy life in\ncontrast to their self-centred materialistic lifestyles. His cleansing of the\nCourt of the Gentiles (Mark 11:15-18), although of only limited effect as\nbusiness was probably only disrupted for one day at the most, was a powerful\nsymbolic statement of a completely different religious agenda. Jesus told the\nastonished religious authorities: Is it not written: My house will be called a house of\nprayer for all nations? But you have made it a \u2018den of robbers\u2019 <\/em>(Mark 11:17). <\/em>Was there repentance for allowing\ncommercialism in the House of God to get out of hand? Did they thank the Lord\nfor pointing out their shortcomings and seek God\u2019s face in prayer concerning this\nmatter? No! The chief priests and the teachers of the law heard\nthis and began looking for a way to kill Him, for they feared Him, because the\nwhole crowd was amazed at His teaching<\/em>\n(Mark 11:18). <\/em> There are people in this land and in every\ncountry on this planet who are repelled and repulsed by goodness. When good\nwork is done motives are questioned in an attempt to undermine the person who\ndid the good work. It is no surprise that Christopher Hitchins, one of the\nmilitant atheists who until his death on 15 December 2011 was amongst those\nmost prominent in promoting their hatred of God and people of faith, had\nprevious picked on human beings doing good work. He had, for example, ridiculed\nMother Teresa and her order of Nuns in Calcutta for helping the poor in order\nthat other people might think well of them! Peter in Acts 3:12-19, following\nthe healing of the lame man, speaks about the conduct of the Jewish people with\nrespect of the death of Jesus: Men of Israel, why does this surprise you? Why do you\nstare at us as if by our own power or godliness we had made this man walk? 13<\/sup> The God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, the God of\nour fathers, has glorified His servant Jesus. You handed Him over<\/strong> to be killed, and you disowned Him<\/strong> before Pilate, though he had decided to let Him\ngo.14<\/sup> You\ndisowned the Holy and Righteous One<\/strong> and asked that a murderer be released\nto you.15<\/sup> You killed the author of life<\/strong>, but God raised Him from the dead. We\nare witnesses of this.16<\/sup> By faith in the name\nof Jesus, this man whom you see and know was made strong. It is Jesus name and\nthe faith that comes through Him that has given this complete healing to him,\nas you can all see.17<\/sup>Now,\nbrothers, I know that you acted in\nignorance<\/strong>, as did your leaders.18<\/sup> But this\nis how God fulfilled what He had foretold through all the prophets, saying that\nHis Christ would suffer. 19<\/sup> Repent, then, and turn to God, so that your\nsins may be wiped out<\/strong>, that times of refreshing may come from the Lord. <\/em> Stephen the\nfirst Christian martyr echoed the words of Jesus at his death recorded in Acts\n7:60 Then\nhe fell on his knees and cried out: Lord do not hold this sin again them. When\nhe said this he fell asleep. <\/em>Likewise on 6 July 1415 in the Council of Constance,\nwhen he was being burned at the stake by the Roman Catholic Church for his\nfaith in Jesus Christ, Jan Hus, probably the greatest ever Christian leader to\nbe raised up in the Czech Republic, declared: \u2018Father\nforgive them, for they know not what they are doing.\u2019 At the heart of the gospel of Jesus is radical\nforgiveness to those who have no right to expect it. Grace to the undeserving!\nHave you received it? The word of forgiveness from Jesus is so counter-cultural\nit is shocking to a world where vengeance to respond to wrong-doing is so often\nassumed to be the only course to take. For those who have received it we face a\ndifferent challenge – Will you share it with other people in Jesus\u2019 name? May\nwe do that in the coming days, for His name\u2019s sake Amen.\n\n\n\n\\lsdpriorit<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Introduction What should the Home Secretary do with Shamima Begum? Until approximately four years ago she was an unknown pupil of Bangladeshi background at Bethnal Green Academy in east London; but at the age of fifteen she went off to Syria with two of her fellow pupils and another young woman to join the Islamic … Continue reading Luke 23:34 The Word of Forgiveness<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-882","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/882","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=882"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/882\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":883,"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/pages\/882\/revisions\/883"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/broughtybaptist.org\/wpsite\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=882"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}