And when they crucified Him, they divided His garments, casting lots for them to determine what every man should take. Now it was the third hour, and they crucified Him. And the inscription of His accusation was written above: THE KING OF THE JEWS. (Mark 15:24)
In Luke 23, we find Jesus beaten, bloodied, and barely able to walk. When they arrived at Golgotha, the Roman soldiers nailed Jesus’ hands and feet to a cross. He endured more physical, emotional, and spiritual suffering than we can imagine. Despite the agonizing and exhausting pain he must have felt by taking a simple breath, Jesus made seven powerful statements from the cross. Among the seven were three prayers and the first was not for himself.
“Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:34)
His enemies have lied about him, spit on him, tortured him, mocked him, and wrongfully accused him. His friends have left him and denied him. The religious leaders and Roman officials are now executing him in public next to actual criminals. And his heart in the midst of his own suffering is to intercede on behalf of his accusers for God’s forgiveness because they don’t know what they are doing.
They didn’t know what they were doing because of sin and “the god of this age has blinded the minds of the unbelievers to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God” (2 Corinthians 4:4). They did not have spiritual eyes to see the truth. Apart from Christ, we are all spiritually blind.
It would have been easier and less painful for Jesus to pray silently, but he wanted us to see him offering compassion toward the people who wronged him. This merciful prayer gives us a framework for forgiveness and becomes the lens through which we should view our own suffering and mistreatment. “Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you.” (Matthew 5:44) Forgive others like Christ has forgiven us.
“Father, forgive them” does not mean that everyone was forgiven without repentance and faith. It meant Jesus was willing to forgive them. It was the reason He was on the cross.
Jesus affirms this in the second prayer he cried out from the cross.
"My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46)
His cry of anguish was not a cry of despair. Jesus was quoting Psalm 22:1. The psalm begins with the agonized prayer of David when he is feeling abandoned by God. His enemies surround him (Psalm 22:7, 12–13), his body is in dreadful pain (Psalm 22:14–16), and he feels that God does not hear him nor care about his suffering. Yet, even in this extreme distress, David never loses faith or falls into complete hopelessness. His anguish leads him to prayer, and the first words of the prayer are “My God.” He does not let go of his knowledge that God is his God. He remembers God’s past faithfulness to assure him of His present faithfulness.
In the second part of this psalm, the tone changes dramatically as prayer turns to praise. David proclaims the name of God, “For he has not despised or scorned the suffering of the afflicted; he has not hidden his face from him but has listened to his cry for help” (Psalm 22:24). This psalm ends with this certainty: “He has done it” (Psalm 22:31). Our God hears our prayers, fulfills His promises, and fills us with praise.
The third prayer is also Jesus’ last statement from the cross.
“It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.” (Luke 23:44-46)
In everything Jesus did and said, He fulfilled the will of God and the word of God. In his final breath, Jesus entrusted everything to his Father in faith and proclaimed that He is trustworthy. Our lives are not in the hands of circumstances, even painful or difficult ones. And our lives are not in the hands of fate or chance. If we are children of God, then our lives are in His hands, and there is no safer place to be. “I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hands.” (John 10:28)
Jesus’ final prayer was from Psalm 31, another psalm written by David. Jesus died as He had lived—praying, forgiving, loving, sacrificing, trusting, meditating on and quoting Scripture. Because Jesus committed His spirit into the Father’s hands, God commits His Spirit into our hearts so we can also live this way.
Jesus’ three prayers from the cross help us to place the suffering of Christ in a larger context. Jesus shared our humanity, “For this reason he had to be made like them, fully human in every way in order that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God, and that he might make atonement for the sins of the people.” (Hebrews 2:17) He came not only to die but to rise again on our behalf. Solomon observed that love is as strong as death (Song of Solomon 8:6). But in Jesus, we see a love that was even stronger.