Glory of Golgotha – March 19, 2025

Lenten Midweek #2: Glory of Golgotha

Wednesday, March 19, 2025

Trinity Lutheran Church-Columbia, MO

St. Luke 23:34

Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. (KJV)

It is good to treasure the last words of dying men and Scripture preserves the for us the last words of many heroes of the faith: Jacob, Moses, Joshua, David. History preserves for us the dying words of many other servants of God. We have Luther’s dying words. But our Lord’s final words are of far more exalted significance; those words the Crucified One uttered in the last hours of His humiliation. As profoundly sad as our Lord’s first word from the cross is, His prayer illumines for us the night of His affliction; this word sparkles like a jewel. His prayer sheds light on the incomprehensible suffering of His uniqueness as a man and His righteousness and love as true God.

Since the day Jesus was nailed to the Cross, His prayer has brought comfort to distressed sinners. It is the most powerful intercession ever uttered on earth. This is no inward sigh or groaning or whisper, but it is audibly addressed to the Father for all the world to hear. All who stood near to His cross heard it. All who read Holy Scripture hear it. This prayer is for those who labor and are heavy laden with sin. Jesus’ intercession unfolds the real meaning and purpose of His suffering. And when we study it we are enlightened to understand His relation to the Father and to us and all sinners.

1. His intercession reveals His obedience to the Father.

“Father forgive them; for they know now what they do.” Jesus spoke to God, but addressed Him as Father. Those who were crucified and going through the torturous agony of it could be expected to utter harsh, angry, horrible laments at their executors for the amount of suffering they were enduring. For those who are not crucified, you and me, for example, when suffering comes there also are usually harsh, angry words. When unexpected suffering comes think of Jeremiah’s response. When he was called to preach judgment (Jer. 19:14ff) it at first seemed an intolerable burden, and so he cursed the day of his birth. Job also murmured against God (Job 38-39). And yet God preserved their lives despite their utterances. But on Golgotha’s cross, a righteous Being without equal, who had never done evil—nor had He even during His worst affliction—ever uttered anything against God. No complaint, no accusation, ever crossed His lips. Even as He drank the cup of suffering and drank it to the dregs, only words of grace ever proceeded from His mouth. He addressed God as Father, even as the Father kept filling His Son’s cup with unimaginable bitterness and Father prepared to abandon Son.

In Gethsemane, when Christ’s soul was troubled and exceedingly sorrowful, He wrestled with God, with crying tears, and bloody sweat, saying, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from Me.” There, too, He addressed God as Father, and as the obedient Son—subordinated His own will, even as He ventured to knock at the door of His Father’s heart, and ask, without violating His vow of obedience—that He might be spared His last and final great suffering. What filled Him with dread in the garden was now reality on Golgotha. Innumerable evil surrounded Him (Ps. 40:12), the deep waters had gone over Him (Ps. 69:1, cf. Jonah 2:5), now His request was silenced before the throne of Heaven.

And still again He says, “Abba, Father,” but now this prayer is not to seek anything for Himself, instead it is to pray for others, for us. His spirit is calm. Although body and soul are wracked with unimaginable torture and torment, the Son commends Himself completely to the Father. Even in agony, the Redeemer know and loves well why He hung upon the cross. The will of the Father, in delivering Him up, was perfectly clear to Him. The mood of His prayer proves that for us. It also shows us that He readily and gladly suffers the will of the Father and is conformed to it. Having been delivered up according to the definite plan and foreknowledge of God (Acts 2:23), He willingly and lovingly fulfilled the Father’s plan of salvation. In eternity the Father said, “Go forth My Son and free My children from their dread of guilt and condemnation. The wrath and stripes are hard to bear, but by Your passion they will share in your salvation.” And the Son willingly replies, “Yes, Father most willingly, I’ll bear what You command Me. My will conforms to Your decree. I’ll do what You have asked of Me.” (LSB 438, stzs. 2-3; TLH 142, stzs. 3a-4). Now that the eternal counsel of God was unfolding on earth on Golgotha’s hill, now that the great and chosen hour by God before all time and before all worlds had come, Christ said, “Your law is on my heart; not My will but Thy will be done; all this I gladly suffer.” This cheerful obedience was an acceptable offering, a sweet-smelling sacrifice, pleasing to God (Eph. 5:1-2; Ex. 29:18, Lev. 1:3, 1:17; 2:2, Php. 4:18). Being pleased and satisfied with the Son as offering, the Father now justly declares, “You are my beloved Son, in You I am well-pleased” (Matt. 3:17; Mk. 1:11; Luke 3:22). Two considerations give worth and redeeming power to the sufferings of Christ. The first is the high price laid down for us: the holy, precious blood of the Son. This blood of God outweighs the guilt of the entire world. The second is the perfect obedience rendered by Jesus. Since the Lamb of God, as Priest, offered Himself, and since He made of His suffering the most glorious willing act of obedience in all creation, therefore the Father has accepted His sacrifice for the redemption of and the reconciliation for sinners, in whose place the Son suffered.

The filial piety of the Redeemer is the pattern and fountain of our own obedience to God and His Law, His will. We bear Christ’s name and so are being trained in the school of the Cross. When suffering overtakes us and we are filled with fears of things to come, we too wrestle with God, and cry out, “O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me!” God hears these heavy sighs from His adopted sons and answers, though not always in the way wanted. And He gives power to bear what at first seemed intolerable. Through His Word and Spirit He increases faith, patience, and obedience. Thus, His children become ever more calm and humble; and even when the heaviest blow falls, we are more stronger and patient than at the beginning. So our cry, “Let this cup pass from me,” is also silenced in heaven, and in its place the contented sigh, “Abba, dear Father!” We see in our sufferings God offers Himself to us as our dear Father and we are calmed with faith that His counsel and will is working itself out in us for our good, and that this is His good and gracious will. Thus, we too rest in the breast of the Father, and we commit the keeping of our souls to the faithful Creator (1 Pet. 4:19).

2. His intercession is a testimony of His love for sinners.

Second, and above all, the intercession of the Crucified Chrit is a testimony of His love for sinners. “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.” It is the love which covers a multitude of sins (1 Pet. 4:8). His prayer is an inexhaustible fount of love and grace from which all poor sinners of the world draw their strength and refreshment. And it is the doxology of all our praise in this life and in the world to come.

The righteous man on Golgotha’s cross is not only different from sinners and unrighteous men who reviled Him and who repaid every wrong with even more cursing, that is to say His persecutors and executioners, but He is also different from every other upright man. The Prophet Elijah brought fire from heaven upon the soldiers sent from Ahaziah to capture Him (1 Kings 1:1ff). And Elisha called forth bears to destroy the impudent boys who were mocking God’s prophet (2 Kings 2:23ff). Like these Prophets of the Old Testament, Christ also committed His cause to Him who judged justly (1 Pet. 2:23), but before the judgment fell upon His persecutors and murders, the Jews, the Romans, you and me, Christ threw Himself into the arms of the Judge and pleaded for mercy on our behalf. This confirms what the Spirit has preserved for us in Isaiah, “He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities” (Is. 53); “He His own self bore our sins in His own body on the tree (1 Pet. 2:24); in Him we have redemption through His blood, even the forgiveness of sins (Eph. 1:7). Yes, the forgiveness of sins-that is the fruit of the passion and death of Christ. The sprinkled blood of the Crucified Christ, the Son of God, speaks a better word than the blood of Abel (Heb. 12:24). Abel’s blood cries out for vengeance, but Christ’s blood cries out, “mercy, mercy!” Christ indicates this Himself when He prayed, “Father, forgive them for they know not what they do.”

This is the true high-priestly prayer. Sacrifice and intercession were the chief concerns of the Old Testament high priest. With the blood of the sacrifice, the High Priest entered once a year in the Holy of Holies to make atonement for the sin of the people and sprinkled blood on the mercy seat to atone for sin. The cloud of incense symbolized prayer—the intercession which he as Israel’s mediator offered up to God (Lev. 16; Heb. 9). But Christ entered once and for all into the most holy place on that great Day of Atonement, Good Friday, and appeared before God’s mercy seat and appeared with His own blood to atone for the sin of the world; and at the same time He offered the incense of prayer and intercession as He appealed to His Father to have mercy on us.

He stepped between the living and dead. When Israel murmured against Moses and Aaron and God sent a plague (Num. 16), Aaron took his thurible and stepped between the dead and the living stilling the anger of God (16:46-48). Similarly Christ, the true High Priest, stepped before God with prayer intercession and turned away wrath which threatened to destroy the world. When Korah and his men rebelled against Moses and Aaron, the earth opened under them and rebels were taken into the bowels of the earth (Num. 16:1ff). When men rebelled against God’s Anointed and nailed Him to the cross, the earth might have been expected to open and swallow the murderers, or that fire should have come down from heaven.

Christ’s prayer is totally different than the prayer of another sinner who appeals for grace and the indulgence of the Judge, even if he was a prophet. Christ’s intercession was not merely a soft-hearted imploring, where there was uncertainty if God would be moved. This prayer is offered by the eternal Second Person of the Holy Trinity, the Son, the Crucified High Priest, true God and true Man, eternally begotten of the Father, this is who raised His voice and His Blood, offering them to the Father, the righteous judge and prayed, “Father forgive them.” Today, now and forever, Christ, our Mediator, still stands before the right hand of God and intercedes for sinners (Rom. 8:34). His prayer then and His prayer now for you is guaranteed to be heard and answered. He says to God not only, “Merciful Father, be gracious to sinners!” He also says, “Righteous Father, I consecrate myself for sinners, I am the expiation and propitiation, now you can be angry with sinners no more. Their guilt is paid.” What in our eyes is grace, undeserved divine grace and mercy, is also the divine right of the Son to present before the Father, it is His to secure.

Christ prays first for those who nailed Him to the cross, His executioners, those who flogged Him, mocked Him, pierced His hands and feet. These Roman men knew nothing of what they were doing; they knew nothing of the hope and consolation of Israel. Pilate, too, is to be numbered with them who knew not what they did. Even though his conscience was pricked by his wife’s dream, he did not recognize the Lord of Glory. Christ’s intercession is for the blind and ignorant Gentiles and that includes you and me.

Did His intercession apply to the Jews? Some think not. Their sin was serious enough, they had hardened their hearts, they knew better because they had Moses and the Prophets. Those leaders on the evening of Holy Thursday who pronounced Jesus a blasphemer did indeed do the will of the devil in their blindness and anger. Some then had been given completely over to unbelief. But it was not until the Jews rejected the preaching of the Apostles and the word of forgiveness they taught, that the final wrath of God was to come upon them, then the sin against the Holy Spirit would have been committed by many more. Then the hardening was complete. And yet, Peter preaches after Pentecost: “You killed the Price of Life…and yet, I know you acted in ignorance, as did your rulers” (Acts 3:15, 17). The Jews, their rules, and their high priests, are to be numbered along with the ignorant for whom Christ prayed.

Christ’s intercession then includes all sinners. He bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors (Is. 53:12). No sinner is excluded. As long as it is possible, the Lord put the best construction even on hatred of God, on disobedience, and even unbelief, ascribing it to ignorance. In this there is precious and strong comfort when our conscience accuses us, for God is greater than our temperamental and unstable hearts (1 John 3:20).

“Father forgive them for they know not what they do” was heard; effective in heaven and on earth. The Father could not close His heart to it. He has reconciled Himself to all men. We have forgiveness of sins and peace with Him. Through His sacrifice and intercession Christ won for us adoption as sons. He who believes enjoys this adoption. Faith, the conversion of sinners, is a fruit, a blessed effect, of Christ’s sacrifice and intercession. For the sake of Christ’s prayer for us, God has patience with the world, and grants sinners time for repentance. Because of this prayer, the Father gives the Son a great portion (Is. 53:12); God is pleased to see sinners repent, believe, and draw the souls of men unto His son, where and when He pleases.

The intercession of Christ is effective on earth. It is comforting Gospel for us. Through the word of the Cross, and also through the lips of the Crucified, our hearts are opened. When the love of Christ is presented to sinners, it more than anything else, is able to conquer the proud and hard heart. In this way the proud are brought low, then His love is kindled in the heart and He causes men to love Him; to change from loving themselves. The love of Jesus further spurs us on to good works. And when we sin we have an Advocate with the Father. We comfort ourselves that when we sin, even repeatedly, our Redeemer continually intercedes for us. His prayer is powerful and effective for our own daily contrition and repentance.

Certainly we dare not abuse this love. He who has been brought to the knowledge of the truth and despises it, he who sins against grace, who willingly and deliberately sins, that man or woman is finally excluded from the eternal benefit of Christ’s intercession; for this person Jesus has no more offering for sin—for Him Jesus withdraws His intercession. There is a sin unto death for which Jesus no longer prays and for which we are not to pray. Lord keep us from that sin!

May the sacrifice and the intercession of our Redeemer never be lost upon any of us or anyone! O Lord, keep us forever as your dear sons. Amen.