Lectio
“[Amma Syncletica] said, ‘Let not the sun go down upon your wrath’ (Eph. 4:26). Likewise, if you wait until the sun is going down on your life, you will not know how to say, “Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof” (Matt. 6:34). Why do you hate the man who has harmed you? It is not he who has harmed you but the devil. You ought to hate the sickness, not the sick man.”
— The Desert Fathers: Sayings of the Early Christian Monks
Meditatio
Then Jesus said, “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34). Christ’s words echo across time and are as true now as they were at the moment of His crucifixion, but it is so easy to forget what He said or to ignore the implication of His words. Because we want to believe that His betrayers, His persecutors, and His crucifiers were evil in a way that we could never be, we tell ourselves that they knew what they were doing, that they understood the scale of it and grasped all of its implications, and they did it anyway. We tell ourselves this because we want to believe that they are guilty in a way that we are not, and that we are different, that we would never have crucified our Lord and Savior, that we know better, that we are better.
But Jesus was not merely praying to the Father for His crucifiers in that moment, He was praying for His crucifiers in all moments, across all ages, even unto today — even unto us. For every time we deny, abandon, or betray Christ, we crucify Him, but also, every time we hate our neighbor, every time we tell ourselves that we are somehow different from them, and every time we fail to forgive someone for some wrong, whether imagined or real, we not only crucify Christ in them, but we also crucify Christ through them.
And in this inability or unwillingness to forgive, we forget the words of Christ, “they do not know what they are doing,” for if they truly knew what they were doing — that in trespassing against us they crucify Christ in us — they would not do it, any more than we would knowingly trespass against them and crucify Christ in them. But if, by His grace, we can remember that the harm done to us by others is not done to us by them, but by the devil in them — for, being Love itself, the God in them would not do these things — we are able to see past the harm to the imago Dei that is hidden behind the shadows of these harms. That is, by seeing the devil in the hurt, we can see God in the forgiveness. In this way, by hating the sickness of our neighbors and the evil one that causes it, and by forgiving our neighbor, for “they do not know what they are doing,” we love them not only as ourselves, but as Christ loves them, and in loving them, we love Christ Himself.
But let us not wait, for we are all criminals on the cross, and when our time expires, at a time we do not know, only those who turn to Him, in whatever moment grace finds them, will be with Him in Paradise. May grace find us all now.
Oratio
A Gift To Give
the grace we give
is not our own
but a gift given unto us
passed on
and if with this gift
we try to hoard
and store away
all we have received
we may find
that this gift
becomes hidden from us
by our own doing
for this gift
is not ours to keep
but to be given
as freely
as it was received
we are but vessels of grace
stewards of its preciousness
reflections of love divine
meant to give
as we have been given
Contemplatio
You do not have to wait until the sun goes down to forgive. The one who has harmed you is not your enemy — the sickness in them is. See past the wound to the face of God still hidden there, and let this seeing be enough. Sit with this in silence, consenting to His presence, and let Him move in you however He wills.
Related Scripture
One of the criminals who were hanged there kept deriding him and saying, “Are you not the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” But the other rebuked him, saying, “Do you not fear God, since you are under the same sentence of condemnation? And we indeed have been condemned justly, for we are getting what we deserve for our deeds, but this man has done nothing wrong.” Then he said, “Jesus, remember me when you come into your kingdom.” He replied, “Truly I tell you, today you will be with me in Paradise.”
— Luke 23:39-43 (NRSVCE)
For Further Reading
If you enjoyed this post, you may also like Loving the Untouchable as the Body of Christ, which explores the same participatory claim at the heart of this post — that in loving our neighbor, we are loving Christ Himself.
Robert Van Valkenburgh
Grappling With Divinity.
Wrestling With God.
Returning To Love.
Leave a Reply