“Father forgive them, they know not what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34) This is the first of the traditional “last seven words” of Jesus. Jesus has just endured the long night of scouring and is abandoned, mocked, and spat upon. He has been stripped of all human dignity and now hangs humiliated upon the cross: “so marred were his features, beyond that of mortals; his appearance, beyond that of human beings” (Isaiah 52:14). Yet his first of his last words are of forgiveness. Continue reading →