Made with Xara Reflections from The Seven Last Words from the Cross:  By Alan 1.  “Father, forgive them for they don’t know what they are doing …..” Luke 23: 34 Roman soldiers, brutalised by years of conflict, killing and casual victory …. done this a thousand times before …… nothing new, nothing different, just routine, just obeying orders …. not a clue what they’re actually involved with …… get the job done …… “Father, forgive them” Jewish leaders, defending their embattled state from those who would disturb it ……. preserving their status quo because it’s all they understand …… fearing the uncertainties of a future already blighted by the occupation …… clear this mess up, get things straight before the Passover, get the people back under control …… too scared to admit even the possibility that there might be something more here, that he might actually be The One …… “Father, forgive them” Disciples, frightened for their own lives, scattered in the crowd, distancing themselves physically and, for a while, emotionally and spiritually …… confused by the appearance of failure and disaster, unable to see the bigger picture, or even to see if there is a bigger picture …… “Father, forgive them” Me, distanced by two thousand miles and educated by two thousand years, but still struggling to hold it all in perspective …… wanting it to be true, fearing that it might not be, confusing faith with aspiration and wishful thinking, so easily distracted by the everyday that I readily miss the power and significance of the unique moment …… “Father, forgive me” 2.  “Today you will be with me in Paradise” Luke 23:43 This man is a thief, a bad lot, thoroughly deserving of his fate and his punishment.  A last gasp conversion?  Wanting it both ways?  Live a life of crime and dissolution and then be forgiven?  That can’t be right.  What sort of justice is that? Curious that God’s justice is more generous in its forgiveness than is ours.  “There is more joy in heaven over one sinner that repents  …… I came not for the righteous but to bring sinners to repentance ….. .  has no-one condemned you, well I certainly don’t”.  Jesus has spent his whole ministry, his whole life perhaps, accepting people as they are, loving those who have failed to match up, embracing those rejected by self-righteous religion in self righteous society; we surely wouldn’t expect him to change now. Here is a re-assurance for all who will be honest about their weakness and their inadequacy, not with mawkish breast-beating, but with a truthful openness to the love that is in Christ.  “Remember me” …… “Of course I will; don’t be afraid; today you shall be with me in Paradise!” 3.   “Woman, this is your son; son this is your mother” John 19: 26, 27 A word of simple, uncomplicated humanity and compassion for Mary, the woman who has, as a mother, surrendered so much ordinary aspiration for her son.  Family details are unclear, Joseph we assume has died by now, what about brothers and sisters?  Whatever the background, Jesus, conscious that, as Simeon prophesied a lifetime ago, a sword has indeed pierced his mother’s soul too, makes provision for her future. There is a price to be paid by mothers, by parents, and Mary’s needs are much more than the merely practical questions of finance and housing.  Recognising that of which she has been deprived, Jesus creates for her the possibility of healing within a new family. People, relationships, human needs for love and acceptance; these were always at the heart of the message of the Kingdom of God and have an eternal significance that must not be lost, even in the most extreme of circumstances. 4.   “My God, why have you forsaken me” Matthew 27: 56, Psalm 22:1 The cross was a place of cruel isolation, even in the midst of a crowd of onlookers and sympathisers.  There is a sense in which we all die alone, no matter how many people are in the room, but to die in desperate, hopeless agony is to be totally alone.  Depressingly it’s not such an uncommon experience - the bombs and bullets of conflict, the pain of starvation and thirst, there are many crosses and in our civilised times, many who die apparently forsaken. It might have been an expression of spiritual alone-ness - deserted even by God himself as Jesus takes on the forces of evil in a cosmic conflict.  That would indeed be a place of desolation and fear. It might have been an attempt, while energy and life drained away, to remember the whole of that Psalm, learned as a boy in synagogue school, that speaks of desolation and of a physical pain that sounds prophetic in its evocation of crucifixion:  “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; my heart is like wax; it is melted within my breast …….” (Ps 22: 14).  And to remember that it speaks also of hope and the conviction that despite all appearances, God is working his purpose out - “he did not depise or abhor the affliction of the afflicted; he did not hide his face from me, but heard when I cried to him… (Ps 22: 24). We have before us the forsakenness in Jesus as we pray for those in our world and in our time whose experience is of forsakenness; we pray for them a glimmer of hope, and for ourselves the will to make hope a reality where we can. 5   “I thirst” John 19: 28 The gospel writer makes the connection with Psalm 69:21, and so has the soldiers fulfilling the prophecy by giving Jesus vinegar or sour wine to drink from a sponge on a spear.  Perhaps that was in Jesus’ mind, perhaps he was still in Psalm 22 (v.15:  “my mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws”).  Perhaps he was just desperately, horribly thirsty; if so this stands as the only reference he makes to the appalling agony of his dying. We might reflect on a connection with his prayer in Gethsemane of a few hours before - “let this cup pass from me, but nevertheless your will not mine ……”.  We might reflect on a connection with the Last Supper - “this is my blood - drink this all of you”.  We might reflect on a connection with all of those who thirst in one way or another for simple clean water and are given sour wine by the rest of the world.  There are all too many ways to be thirsty in our time and those of us who are in the wealthy, powerful parts of this world need to be careful that we offer better than sour wine to those who plead their thirst to us. We might though simply reflect on the human pain of that death, and the willingness of Jesus to thirst on our behalf as he completes his vocation as the Messiah, the Suffering Servant of God. 6.  “It is finished” John 19: 30 At many levels, it is indeed finished. As consciousness begins to slip away, that appalling journey of suffering is finished, and those standing at the foot of the cross and we looking on in our imaginations find trauma and grief mitigated by relief that indeed, it is finished. At a deeper level, for Jesus the carpenter’s son from Nazareth who is also Jesus the Christ, the Word made flesh, the task, the tension of holding together the human and the divine in one life is finished.  Within the desire of God to restore humanity to himself (John 3:16), the task is accomplished, human wickedness has done its worst, the love of God has faced it down, the sacrifice has been made, the price has been paid ….. By whatever metaphor or theology is used to interpret these events - “the strife is o’er, the battle done” - it is finished. Our prayer is of thanksgiving that God in Christ finished, completed the task; that he didn’t give up on us; that he felt we were worth the journey.  Such is the value that God places on humanity.  Our prayer for ourselves is that we too might have the grace and the faith to undertake that to which God in Christ calls us and to complete it, that whatever it is, however great or small in the scheme of things, it might be thoroughly finished. 7.  “Father, into your hands I commend my Spirit” Luke 23: 46:  Psalm 31:5 It is Luke alone amongst the gospel writers who records this phrase for us as literally the dying words of Jesus.  Perhaps the physician in him wants to find a resolution of the agony of the past hours in a moment of peace, a moment of reconciliation, a dying moment in which the forsakenness of crucifixion is itself ended.  Jesus’ ministry began with the dove from heaven and a voice saying “you are my Son, the Beloved, with you I am well pleased” …… there is perhaps a sense here of the circle completed and Jesus welcomed into the reassuring pleasure of God in anticipation of the bursting out of New Life which will follow. For now though, as the world pauses and waits for what will happen next, Jesus is at peace. Alan Glasby