Luke 23 34 Sermon

Father, Forgive Them

Open your Bible to Luke chapter 23, and read with me beginning at verse 32.

Two others, who were criminals, were led away to be executed with him. When they arrived at the place called The Skull, they crucified him there, along with the criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing." And they divided his clothes and cast lots.

The people stood watching, and even the rulers were scoffing at him, saying, "He saved others; let him save himself if this is God's Messiah, the Chosen One." The soldiers also mocked him. They came offering him sour wine and said, "If you are the king of the Jews, save yourself." An inscription was above him: THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.

Stop right there. Seven words. Seven words spoken from a cross, and they have been rearranging the moral universe ever since. Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.

Now before we go any further, I need you to understand what is happening in this scene, because the weight of this prayer only lands when you feel the full pressure of the moment. Jesus is not speaking these words from a comfortable chair. He is not praying this from a position of safety or strength in any earthly sense. He is nailed to wood. He is bleeding. He is surrounded by people who are mocking him, dividing his clothing like he is already dead, and daring him to come down if he is who he says he is. The very soldiers carrying out the execution are offering him sour wine as a kind of cruel joke. The rulers of the people are scoffing. The crowd is watching. And in the middle of all of that, the first recorded words out of Jesus on the cross are not a curse. They are not a complaint. They are a prayer for the people who put him there.

That is the text. That is the scene. And if you are going to preach Luke 23:34, you cannot soften it. You cannot domesticate it. You have to let it be as shocking as it actually is.

Here is the central claim of this passage. The cross is not only the place where sin is punished. It is the place where forgiveness is born. And the prayer of Jesus from the cross is not a footnote to the atonement. It is a window into the very heart of what the atonement means.

Let us look at three things this text shows us.

First, look at who is praying and where he is praying from.

The text is careful about this. Luke tells us they crucified him there, and then almost in the same breath, Jesus said, Father, forgive them. Luke does not separate the prayer from the crucifixion. They happen together. The praying and the dying are simultaneous. This is not Jesus forgiving people after the pain was over. This is Jesus interceding in the middle of the worst moment a human body can endure.

That matters enormously, because it tells us something about the nature of the one doing the praying. This is the Son of God, and even in his suffering, his orientation is toward the Father and toward the people who are harming him. He does not turn inward. He does not turn bitter. He turns upward and outward. He prays.

There is a word that the New Testament uses for what Jesus is doing here, and it is the word intercession. He is standing in the gap between sinful people and a holy God, and he is pleading their case. And the stunning thing is that he is doing it while they are still sinning against him. Not after. Not once they apologized. While the nails are still in his hands. While the soldiers are still rolling dice over his clothes. While the rulers are still laughing.

This is the character of the one you are trusting with your life. Write that down somewhere in your heart.

Second, look at what he is asking and why.

Father, forgive them, because they do not know what they are doing.

Now some people stumble over that second part. They do not know what they are doing. Does that mean they were innocent? No. Luke has already shown us that these rulers plotted against Jesus deliberately. The soldiers are following orders, yes, but they are mocking him with full awareness. The crowd has called for his crucifixion. Nobody in this scene is being accidentally cruel. So what does Jesus mean?

He means something deeper than ignorance of the facts. They do not know what they are doing in the fullest theological sense. They do not know that they are crucifying the Lord of glory. They do not know that the one they are killing is the only one who can save them. They do not know that in trying to silence the Son of God they are actually setting in motion the very event that makes forgiveness possible for the whole world. Their sin is real. Their guilt is real. But their understanding of what they are participating in is catastrophically incomplete.

And here is where this becomes personal, because that description fits every one of us before we came to faith. We did not know what we were doing when we lived in rebellion against God. We did not fully understand the weight of sin, the holiness of God, the cost of grace. We were, as Paul says in Ephesians, dead in our trespasses. You cannot fully comprehend what you are doing when you are spiritually dead. And yet Jesus prayed for us. He interceded for people who did not even know they needed intercession.

The grace of God in this prayer is not a grace that waits for you to get your theology right before it moves toward you. It is a grace that moves toward you in your ignorance, in your rebellion, in your worst moment, and says, Father, forgive them.

If you are here today and you are not sure where you stand with God, I want you to hear this. The prayer of Jesus from the cross was prayed for people exactly like you. He did not wait until they understood. He prayed while they were still in the dark. And that same Jesus, now risen and seated at the right hand of the Father, is still interceding for those who will come to him. Hebrews 7:25 tells us he always lives to make intercession for those who come to God through him. The cross was not the end of his praying for sinners. It was the beginning.

Third, look at what this prayer demands of those who receive its grace.

This is where the text moves from the cross into your life this week.

Luke 23:34 is not just a beautiful theological statement to admire from a distance. It is a pattern. It is a model. It is a call. Because the same Jesus who prayed this prayer is the one who, in the Sermon on the Mount, said to love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you. He did not just teach that. He lived it. He prayed it from a cross.

And if you have received the forgiveness that this prayer purchased, you are not permitted to hoard it. You are called to extend it.

Now I am not going to pretend that is easy. Forgiving the person who betrayed you, who lied about you, who walked away, who did real damage to your life, that is one of the hardest things a human being can do. I am not minimizing what has been done to you. The pain is real. The wound is real. But the question this text puts to every believer is this. Has the grace of God gotten deep enough into your soul that it has changed how you treat the people who have wronged you?

Notice that Jesus does not say the people who wronged him deserved forgiveness. He does not say they earned it. He does not say they even asked for it. He prays for their forgiveness because forgiveness is the nature of the God he is revealing. The cross is the fullest revelation of who God is, and who God is, is a God who forgives.

When you refuse to forgive, you are not protecting yourself. You are cutting yourself off from the very current of grace that saved you. You are holding onto something that the cross already dealt with. And you are living in a smaller story than the one God has written for you.

The grace that remakes human relationships does not come from inside you. You cannot manufacture it. You cannot will yourself into forgiving someone who has genuinely hurt you. But you can go back to the cross. You can stand again at the place called The Skull and hear those seven words. Father, forgive them. And you can ask the same Jesus who prayed that prayer to do in you what you cannot do in yourself.

That is not weakness. That is the most courageous thing a person can do. It is choosing to live out of the resurrection rather than out of the wound.

Here is where I want to close.

Luke does not tell us whether the soldiers who heard that prayer ever believed. He does not tell us whether any of the rulers who mocked him later came to faith. But he does tell us, a few chapters later in the book of Acts, that on the day of Pentecost, thousands of people in Jerusalem, many of whom may have been in that crowd, heard the gospel and believed. Peter stood up and said, this Jesus whom you crucified, God has raised him from the dead. And the people were cut to the heart and asked, what should we do? And Peter said, repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins.

The prayer got answered. Father, forgive them. And the Father did.

That same forgiveness is available to every person in this room. If you have never surrendered your life to Jesus Christ, the cross was for you. The prayer was for you. The resurrection was for you. You do not have to have it all figured out. You just have to come.

And if you are a believer who is carrying an unforgiven wound, let the cross do its work. Go back to Luke 23:34. Read it slowly. Let those seven words break open whatever has hardened in you. Father, forgive them. Because he did. And because he does. And because that grace is still moving.

Sources Consulted

Bock, Darrell L. Luke 9:51 to 24:53. Baker Exegetical Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 1996.

Green, Joel B. The Gospel of Luke. New International Commentary on the New Testament. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1997.

Marshall, I. Howard. The Gospel of Luke. New International Greek Testament Commentary. Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1978.

Morris, Leon. Luke. Tyndale New Testament Commentaries. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1988.

Stott, John R. W. The Cross of Christ. Downers Grove: InterVarsity Press, 1986.