A radical Good Friday thought: The last seven words of Jesus

I was just sitting here, thinking about "Father forgive them, they know not what they do." And I was thinking that if Jesus could forgive His accusers, torturers, murderers, we could forgive those in our lives who hurt us, mistreat us.

Then I thought, wait a minute. Jesus didn't say "I forgive you" from the Cross. He asked the Father to forgive them.

We sometimes put a lot of pressure on ourselves to instantly and miraculously forgive those who hurt us, or who do terrible things, evil things. And we beat ourselves up internally if we can't. But what if we aren't expected to. Not that we shouldn't try - we must. But Jesus taught us to pray for our enemies. And that's exactly what He did on the Cross. He lifted them up in prayer for forgiveness, even as he bore those awful wounds at their hands.

When we are hurting, when someone has hurt us and we can't find it in our hearts to forgive them, we can breathe easier following Jesus' lead. We can remove ourselves from the hurtful situation (when possible) all the while praying for them: "Lord God, forgive them." Not in a condescending way, but with the knowledge that we are all God's children, and we all commit sin. Just as serving each other is serving God, wounding each other is wounding God (as Jesus was wounded and killed). We wound the God-self in ourselves when we hurt the other (because, remember, there is no "other" as we are One Body in Christ).

And sometimes (not always, as in cases of abuse, violation, and war), arrows are slung on both sides, so we can also ask God to forgive our own offenses - because God desires to be in full communion with us all, so God desires to forgive us if we are truly sorry.

We can ask God to give us the grace to forgive, to let our woundedness heal - this is key to being "resurrected" from pain and hurt. If I've learned one thing, especially recently, it's that we cannot be healed of wounds we continuously rip open by telling ourselves our own stories over and over and over again. How we have been victimized, scandalized, denigrated, brutalized. This keeps us where the Enemy wants us: feeling powerless, victimized, bitter, and therefore incapable of giving or receiving God's LOVE.