Jesus' First Word From the Cross

"Father, forgive them, for they don't know what they're doing." -?Lu?23:34 He hung there- suspended by nails through His wrists and feet. Soldiers laughing. Leaders sneering. The crowd mocking. Both criminals taunting Him (Lu?23:39), joining the chorus of contempt. His followers stood at a distance- far enough not to be noticed, but close enough to see the hammer fall, close enough to hear His groans and His last words. He spoke seven times from the cross. Each sentence demanded pushing down on His feet to ease the weight on His lungs. His first prayer from the cross was spoken in the present tense, repeated again and again: "Father, forgive them?" To grasp the deeper meaning of that prayer, we must go back to the garden. It was there Jesus' sweat mingled with blood, dripped to the ground- from the cup before Him. On the cross, His blood also dripped to the ground- from His hands, His feet, His head, His back- spilling from the cup at His lips. In Gethsemane (Mt?26), Jesus prayed three times for the Father to intervene: "Take this cup?" And the Father refused. He held back rescue. At Golgotha (Lu?23), on the cross, Jesus repeatedly prayed for the Father not to intervene. Here's the part often missed: the verb He uses for forgive- aph�?mi- usually means release a debt. "Forgive us our debts" (Mt?6). But aph�?mi also means: hold back, don't interfere. And here, it cannot mean "cancel their debt." Why? Because forgiveness never comes because Jesus asks the Father to forgive someone. Jesus said forgiveness comes to the one who believes in the One the Father sent (Jn?3; Jn?6). On the cross, Jesus can't be asking the Father to erase the debt of His executioners. There, aph�?mi must mean: hold back, don't interfere, don't rescue Me. Jesus isn't asking for the forgiveness of debt- but pleading for divine restraint. So His prayer becomes a plea for the Father not to remove the cup. Soon Jesus would drink the cup filled with the Father's wrath. Forgiveness would come- not because Jesus prayed for it there, but because the Father let Him drink it.