We do not know what we are doing

This Holy Week we will hear again that cry: “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do“. Those first words of Jesus on the cross are words of forgiveness, not vengeance or fear. Nor does he ask the supreme Judge for justice in the face of such a cruel death of an innocent man. And the most unprecedented thing: he declares that those who crucify him “do not know what they are doing“. He pleads for his executioners while his eyes, swollen and blinded by the blood dripping from his thorn-crowned head, barely make them out. But is it true that they did not know? For everything seems to indicate that Jesus’ executioners and their accomplices were not exactly innocent.

– Did they not know what the Roman soldiers, the material executors of the most horrendous crime in human history, were doing?

– Were Annas and Caiaphas, and with them the caste of obfuscated priests and scribes, incapable of comprehending the magnitude of the error they were committing?

– Did the governor Pontius Pilate, assailed by his fears and cowardice, really think he had made a “politically correct” decision, convinced as he was of the Nazarene’s innocence?

– Could Judas justify his betrayal because of his disappointment at the impossibility of leading a revolt against the invading Roman?

– Did the blasphemous, vociferous crowd know nothing, and was there only a sadistic desire to be amused by the misfortune of others and to kill the evening with an unusual spectacle?

How is it possible that none of them knew what they were doing? How can such clumsiness be justified?

The people who crucified Jesus did not know what they were doing because they were incapable of recognising that Jesus was loving them to the extreme. That was the real ignorance of the executioners and accomplices. Too often, we do harm because we feel unloved.

That apathetic ignorance explains why so many good people remain blind and indifferent to the pain of others. We live comfortably while evil is rampant, not because we are cynical, but because we have not known the love of God. Whoever does not feel loved is illiterate in love.

Jesus, looking at each one of us, says to the Father: “Forgive them, Father, for they know not what they do!” Very few have heard in their hearts the voice of God saying: “I love you! Very few have felt what Jesus felt at his baptism: “You are my beloved Son“. Most have never heard those words from another human being, let alone from God.

But there is a place in our hearts where we can become aware of the kiss of the God who loves us unconditionally. We sense it when we see Jesus forgiving. For forgiveness is the highest form of love. His forgiveness flows from the cross like that blood that trickles down his crucified body and drenches this dear and terrible world of ours. For God did not send his Son into the world,” says John’s Gospel, “to condemn the world, but that the world through him might be saved” (Jn 3:17). For you too there is forgiveness.

 

Juan Carlos cmf

(PHOTO: Policraticus)

 

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