Meditations on the seven words spoken by
Jesus on the Cross
1.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”
2.
“Today, thou shalt be with me in
Paradise”
4.
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me”
5.
“I thirst!”
7. “Father, into Thy hands I commend My Spirit!”
“Father, forgive them; for they know not
what they do.”
(Luke xxiii.34)
This was the first word spoken by our Lord on His Cross. It was uttered just when the soldiers were in the act of crucifying Him – driving the terrible nails through His hands and feet. It was a moment of excruciating, inconceivable anguish. Yet He uttered no cry of pain, no word of execration upon those who were causing Him such suffering, but calmly prayed for His brutal, pitiless murderers – “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”
The moment the sacred blood began to flow the intercession for sinners began, The pleading was first for the ignorant heathen soldiers who were acting as executioners; but it was not for these alone. It certainly widened out, and took in all who had been concerned in the condemnation and crucifixion of Jesus. It was for the Jewish rulers and people who had rejected their Messiah. May we not believe that many of those who on the day of Pentecost and afterward were brought to repentance were forgiven and saved because on His Cross Jesus made intercession for all of them? Then the prayer went out beyond the people who had a direct part in the crucifixion. From His Cross Jesus saw the lost world down to the end, and prayed for all men. We know, too, that the word of prayer was but the beginning of an intercession that is going on yet inside heaven, where Jesus pleads the merits of His own sacrifice for the salvation of sinners.
This word of Jesus teaches us a great lesson son Christian forgiveness. He prayed for His murderers. We should pray for those who injure us. There are some fragrant trees which bathe in perfume the axe that gashes them. So should it be with Christ’s people. Instead of resentment and injury for injury, we should show only sweet, tender love to them who harm us.
“To day shalt thou
be with Me in
LUKE xxiii.43.
Thus
was the second word on the cross. Something
touched the heart of one of the robbers – may it not
have been the Saviour’s prayer for His murderers?-and
he became patient in his dying hour, and cried to Jesus for mercy: “Lord remember me when Thou comest into Thy Kingdom.”
Quickly from the lips of the dying Redeemer came the gracious response, “To-day shalt though be with Me in paradise? The words are full of meaning, of which
broken hints only can here be given.
Though
in the agony of death, Jesus could yet give life to a dead soul. Though draining the dregs of the cup of woe,
He could give a cup of blessedness to a penitent. Though His hand was nailed to the cross, it
yet carried the key of paradise, and opened the gate to allow a repentant soul
to enter. Surely there was no more royal
moment in all Christ’s life than this.
The
promise itself tells us what death is for the believer. “To-day shalt thou be with Me.” There is
no long, dark passage, therefore, through which the freed soul must go to reach
blessedness. There is no purgatory in
which it must wait to be prepared for glory.
At once the spirit goes into the presence of Christ.
The
Word tells us also in what heaven’s blessedness really consists. “Thou shalt be with
Me.” Being with
Christ is glory. No sweeter, more
blessed heaven can be conceived of. We
know but little about heaven as a place – where it is, what it is like; but
this much we know – there we shall be with Christ. Is not that enough to know?
Woman,
behold thy son!
“When
Jesus therefore saw His month, and the disciple
standing by whom He loved, He saith unto His mother,
Woman, behold thy son!” - JOHN
xix.26.
THIS
was the third word spoken by our Lord from the cross. Not far away, in some quiet
spot amid the multitude, stood a little group of His dearest friends. Most of them were women. As His eye looked down upon them He saw among
them His own mother. Verily, the sword
was piercing through her heart as she beheld here Divine Son on His cross.
As
Jesus saw His mother in her deep grief, though suffering untold anguish
Himself, His heart went out in compassion and love for her. He thought of her unsheltered, as she would
be, when He was gone. He remembered what
she had been to Him in His tender infancy and defenseless
childhood as she had blessed Him with her rich, self-forgetful love.
“Stripped of everything!" “Jesus seemed to have
nothing more to give. Nevertheless, from
the midst of this deep poverty He had already made precious gifts: to His
executioners He had bequeathed the pardon of God; to His companion in
punishment, paradise. Could He find
nothing to leave to His mother and His friend?
These two beloved persons, who had been His most previous treasures on
earth, He bequeathed to one another, giving thus at once a son to His mother
and a mother to His friend."
In this beautiful act of our Lord we have a wondrous commentary on the fifth commandment. Every young person, or older one, with parents yet living, who reads this fragment of the story of the cross should remember the lesson, and pay love’s highest honour to the father or the mother to whom he owes so much. No suffering or pain of our own should ever make us forgetful to our parents, and we should honour them to the last moment of their life.
“My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?” (Matt.xxvii.46)
This was the fourth word on the Cross. It is too mysterious for explanation, and we may only ponder it with hushed hearts for a little.
“Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” It was not the nails in His flesh, nor the insults of scoffing enemies, nor the ignominy of the Cross, but the fact that Jesus for the time had lost the sense of the Father’s presence, that made the grief of the hour.
“Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” What had He, the beloved Son, done that the Father should forsake Him? It would not have seemed so strange if He had forsaken the angels or the saints living in glory; but why should He forsake His own son?
“My God!” Why does He not say, My Father”? He said, “Father” in the first word on the Cross, and in the very last; why is it “My God” here? Has He in the darkness lost the consciousness of Sonship? Does He seem pushed far away from home, from the Father’s heart, from the bosom where from all eternity he had reposed? So it seems. Yet mark how His faith clings in the darkness: it is still “My God!” He has not lost faith even in the darkness. His faith holds, though He cannot see God’s face. No matter how dark the night about us, how heavy the cross that weights us down, how lonely and deserted we may feel, we should never lose faith in God. Behind the blackest clouds His face ever beams with love. He is still our God, though for the time he may have left us alone.
“Why hast Thou forsaken Me?” Can we answer this “why”? We know only that Jesus was bearing our sins, and that it was for our sake he had to endure this hiding. He was forsaken then for a small moment that for all eternity we might enjoy the favour of God and dwell in communion with Him.
“After this, Jesus
knowing that all things were now accomplished….saith,
I thirst.” (John xix.28)
Here we have our Lord’s fifth word on the Cross. It was just before the end. All things belonging to His work as Redeemer were now finished. He had suffered from thirst all the terrible six hours that he hung on the Cross, but he restrained His anguish until His task was done. Now He gave expression to His desire for drink, the only word on the Cross that referred to his physical sufferings.
Some one reached up to Him on a stem, of hyssop a sponge which had been moistened in the sour vinegar that stood there. It was an act of kindness and pity, and was the only mark of human tenderness shown to Jesus in those hours. We cannot but be thankful for this slight ministry which must have given momentary relief to the holy Sufferer.
Earlier in the day, at the moment of crucifixion, He was offered drink which He refused. That was a stupefying potion, a deadening wine mingled with myrrh or wormwood. It was offered with the intention of dulling His senses, that he might not be conscious of His sore suffering. He refused it because He wished to preserve the clearness of His mind in the hours when He was making atonement for the world. This potion, offered now by the soldier, was not medicated wine, and was not stupefying in its effects. He needed refreshment to strengthen Him for the great final act – the giving of His soul up to God.
All the experiences of Jesus Christ which reveal human need and suffering bring Him very near to us. Since He suffered hunger and thirst, and pain and weariness and sorrow, He is able to sympathize with us in all our human experiences. He knows what we feel, for He has not forgotten even in heaven what He Himself endured in His incarnation.
“He said, It is
finished.”
(John xix.30).
This was our Lord’s sixth word on the Cross. His allotted life-work was done; all His task was ended, all things set for Him to do were done, and nothing more remained for Him but to die. Many men come to the end even of long lives and find their work far from finished when the call comes to leave this world; but though the life of Jesus had been so short, He was ready to go. He had done each day the work given Him that day to do, and when the last hour of the last day came there was nothing that He had left undone. We ought to learn the lesson for ourselves land live as Jesus lived, so as to have every part of our work finished when the end comes. We can do this only by taking it faithfully. Then when the last day comes we shall leave nothing unfinished.
But what was it that was finished when Christ bowed His head on the Cross? The work of redemption was done. The atonement for sin was made. As Jesus died, the veil of the temple laws rent in twain from top to bottom, and access made into the holiest for all who would enter. A famous picture represents Christ lifted up, and beneath Him an innumerable procession of the saints advancing out of the darkness and coming into the light of His Cross. There can be no doubt that he had such a vision of redemption while He hung there; for we are told that “He endured the cross, despising the shame’ because of the joy set before Him”-that is, the joy of receiving home the souls He had redeemed.
“It is finished” was therefore, a shout of victory as He completed His work of suffering and sacrifice. Death seemed like defeat, but it was not defeat. He went down into the grave, but not to stay there. He came again, like a glorious conqueror, and because He lives all His people shall live also.
“Father,
into Thy hands I commend my spirit.”
(Luke xxiii.46)
This was the seventh and the last words spoken on the cross. Christ’s work as redeemer was now altogether done; His last word, “finished,” marked its completion. Now He is ready to go back to His Father. Before Him lies the mystery of death. He is about to lose consciousness; His spirit is about to escape from His body. Here we see His calm trustful faith. The terrible struggle is over, and He is at perfect peace. The word “Father” which He here uses shows that His soul has recovered its serenity. A little while ago He was in the darkness, and felt himself forsaken; now the darkness is gone and the full light shines in again, and the Father’s face beams upon Him in loving approval. It is the first experience of the glorious joy of redemption, breaking over the Redeemer’s soul, as He emerges from the shadow of His cross.
The words are peculiarly instructive to us as a picture of Christian dying. It is as a breathing of the spirit into the hands of the heavenly Father. It is natural to regard death as a strange and mysterious experience, and to think of it with shrinking, if not with fear. We are leaving behind everything with which we are familiar- the friends, the scenes, the paths, the life - and are gong out into an untried way, into what seems to us darkness, a valley of shadows. What is death? Where shall we be when we escape from our body? Will it be dark or light? Shall we be alone or accompanied?
Here comes this word of our Lord, and we learn that the believing soul when it leaves the body passes at once into the Father’s hands. Surely that is enough for us to know. We shall be perfectly safe eternally if we are in our Father’s hands. If we think thus of death it will have no terrors for us. No child is ever afraid to go into its Father’s hands, and that is all of dying of a believer.
(Dr.J.R.Miller)