The First Word "Forgive them Father, they don't know what they are doing..." Of course they think they know what they are doing. They think they are executing a criminal, a blasphemer, the leader of a dangerous insurrection nipped in the bud. Order is aft

Meditations on The Seven Last Words

by Simon Cawdell

The First Word

“Forgive them Father, they don’t know what they are doing…”

Of course they think they know what they are doing. They think they are executing a criminal, a blasphemer, the leader of a dangerous insurrection nipped in the bud. Order is after all everything in this Empire. Commerce requires it, security depends on it. Life needs to be controlled, watched, monitored. Taxes need to be collected, citizens protected, and anyone who might threaten that must be put away. Yes crucifixion seems a bit extreme in this instance, but order demands the occasional sacrifice pour encourager les autres. After all it’s only another itinerant preacher, a worthless scrounger off the population. He will not be missed except by his few cowed supporters, and where are they now anyway. Clearly not much stomach for a fight.

How often do we make such order our God, I wonder. How quickly we write off those we do not know, or things we do not understand. They seem an inconvenience, even an irritant sometimes, coming in the way of well planned living, posing questions we do not wish to answer about ourselves, how we live, and how we die. How little patience we have when waiting to see how God is moving is the right course of action. The notion is just too intangible.

But then what if they had known. Would the realisation have been too much for them? They might have known, but could they ever have understood this strange truth of God Incarnate. Myths are one thing, with their comfortable distance, but here, in front of you, beyond belief. Perhaps the truth is faith is sometimes easier than reality, it is an ordered existence into which we can dip when reality becomes too unbelievable, or uncomfortable to face. Perhaps they are too content to not know what they are doing. It is simply easier that way. “Ours not to reason why.” That’s it. Comfortable ignorance that permits of peaceful existence, untroubled, unchallenged.

Lord forgive us. We don’t know what we are doing.

The Second Word

“Truly I tell you today you will be with me in Paradise”

Paradise. He didn’t expect that. The dying man reaches out in simple hope he will be remembered. A faint hope perhaps given his past. He understands his sentence, though not perhaps that in him we all reach out, penitent, seeking forgiveness through this dying preacher. This penitent hanging there symbolising us all in his death, the punishment for sin prescribed for our wilfulness, and the vigour with which we have walked away from God. And now in weakness and on the cusp of destruction we return. Remember us, remember us, like the lost echo of the fallen we remember in this place, war weary dead fighting over causes past and present griefs, remember us, but not for glories sought or gained; just miserable eking out of selfish living, beyond the reconnaissance of God. Remember us just simply for that which we have so easily squandered, and now ourselves remember. Lost innocence, past betrayed, relationships broken. Lord remember us, not as we are, but for what we might have been, that you might restore in us your image.

That will be Paradise enough. No pictures required, they cannot match it, no fanfare please, but just the knowledge of your leading, that we might even now follow where you are going. “Lord we don’t know where you are going, so how can we know the way.” I wonder if Thomas, perhaps far off heard this penitent, finding in his question some far off whisper of faith fled. “When you come into your Kingdom.” But what Kingdom, what mansion, what Paradise. Remember us Lord, full of doubt, full of question, yet still full of your love.

The Third Word

“Here is your Son; here is your Mother”

‘And a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ Now comes the bitter truth of the prophecy, long wondered over. So much hope, so much joy even after the gentle nudge at Cana. My Son, and how they flocked to him. Truly he saved his people, and so many of them. Blind deaf and lame, they all came, and the crush outside the house, all for my boy. Yes the Angel spoke truth and I have seen it all. And yes, here now at the unlooked for ending still His family, as only a Mother’s belief can show when all others flee. Hush my child, dear dear child. Heart speaks to heart in the hopes dashed, and the realities of misunderstood hopeless disappointments. There can be no love like a Mother’s love, and no loss like a Mother’s loss. “Don’t fret for me my son. I’ll be fine, I’ll see to everything, like I always have from the day I first fed you.” There is more than one heart broken on the cross, more than one life shattered, more than one soul pierced. “Farewell my Son,” she sighs, “Farewell.”

Now comes the taking leave, the disappointment of responsibility unfulfilled, a Son’s hopes dashed. “I wish you hadn’t seen…” Now still the need to provide, the understanding of a care to be transferred, even now not forgetting a worldly responsibility, or a heaven sent duty. Take her. Care for her. Love her, she who gave me life, let her live that life through you. Guide him, not now to sit at my right hand, and to understand, as only you can see, where his own mother did not. Lead him as he will lead remembering this day, and those to come. Love him like your child, as once you have loved me. Love him, this Son of Thunder, that he will understand true compassion, and the realities of grace unfolding to a broken world.

Love one another as I have loved you.

The Fourth Word

“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”

Father once, even a moment ago. But now set aside, forsaken, Father no longer in the pain of separation. The closeness shaping the agony; we were one once, the Father and I. All that I spoke came from him, but not now, for he is …gone. First Mother, now Father in the drawn out leave taking, and all being is torn in two. Now all the weight of sin descends, the true burden accepted from the penitent thief and each one of us taken on, shouldered for us all. Unbearable burden as the reality dawns that this is not a temporary fleeting moment. The separation is total. Perhaps it was expected, but not quite like this. Nobody can describe this utter desolation, this hoping but knowing that nothing can take place. This is love sought, by proxy prodigal son returning, [“My Father…”] but finding nobody at home except an older brother gloating at the foot of the cross, or the grave of him so recently departed in unrequited grief for the son now lost completely to him. And so there is nothing now but unconsoled emptiness, and hopeless despair in the face of coming death.

The cry of desolation is heard. Pain felt for what is lost. Past closeness set aside, future expectation lost, humanity of the Mother, and Divinity of the Father all gone. “Destroy this body and I will build it up again in three days.” That was then, when there was a confidence in the Father’s presence, but this is now, alone, abandoned, sullied by sin, lost, forgotten. You cannot plan for Resurrection, in fact now, you cannot plan at all.

The Fifth Word

“I am thirsty”

All you who are thirsty come to me. The irony of it. He who once offered the living water to all who turned to him now is thirsty. The source is dried up and the River of Life empty. Like the man now hanging there, dehydrated, shrivelling as the essence of life is squeezed out, evaporating in the heat of the day, and the burning sun. I thirst. He through whom the waters were made is now abased amidst the stench of sweat and filth, and even those who guard take pity in the offer not of water by wine with gall, mixed to dull the pain, but still, he will not take it, for the pain is part of the process that must be endured. Not shirking any moment, nor setting aside any sin, but just accepting, commenting honestly on weakness now so painfully felt and understood. This is now a growing embrace of ending, of mortal certainty that brings relief as death approaches, not now as enemy, but, mortal man, as friend, end, relief.

Fear those who may destroy the soul. This body is at the end of the journey, but the soul, assailed, remains unbroken despite its universal creation made burden. Still he persists, not ashamed to admit his frailty, now or ever, embracing his humanity even in its ending. Like us in all respects excepting our sins, which he now carries headlong to the grave in the desiccation of his carcass. Drying, living yet he carries for us salvation as no other can. This is my body given for you.

The Sixth Word

“It is finished”

What is finished? His ordeal is certainly coming to its conclusion as death draws closer. He even embraces it, looking forward to his final release, and the uncertainty of the future that now holds, beyond his control, no voice to call him from the tomb, like Lazarus, waiting just a few miles away to appear at the appointed time. Perhaps it is life that is finished, utterly, as he acknowledges the despair of annihilation, to be wiped from the map of mortal memory, not just death to the body but complete destruction, second death and lake of fire carrying the sins he has embraced, absorbed and overcome. Now maybe he looks towards a total ending, conclusion of consciousness, the dissipation of Spirit into some amorphous mindless void where all he has achieved is vanished into nothingness. No paradise this any longer but dull aching blackness. Would the penitent beside him still embrace this, or does he, poor soul look forward resting his hopes on some fading illusion.

Or is it triumph, the knowledge in that embracing death he has fulfilled his sacrificial role. The lamb is slain, the offering made, the debts all done, the bill is paid, and at the last courage is restored in hope of a brighter dawn, and remembrance of all that has been, is and must be for this is why he came. Simply to see it through to its utter logical prophesied end. Here cursed, condemned, mourned and reviled he remembers his truth, his passion and his victory. Is this then the triumphant foolishness that now proclaims “This is my blood poured out for you.”

The Seventh Word

“Into your hands O Lord I commend my spirit.”

At last it is ended. And now at this conclusion Jesus, born to save his people can still turn in faith and trust to commit his spirit. Through the pain and past the abandonment and separation still he trusts. The bond remains; the connection still made, the burden of guilt dropped away. This is supposed to be failure, the destruction of his humanity, a final humiliation watched over by gloating authorities who see their prestige enhanced in the slaughter of another’s.

But hear it, whispered now, in passing certainty, falling from fleeting final breaths this acknowledgement of God, the truth now sets him free. Lord, Lord, I commend my Spirit, as each of us in time will look to him now crucified ourselves, and in ancient phrases find our spirit at the last lifted up to him who died for this, and seek his commendation. “Into your hands O Lord, I commend my Spirit.” High Priest of God, Saviour, Son, slaughtered sacrifice given for us, victoriously you commend your Spirit. Dying now free, unsullied, he alone commends himself spotlessly.

And waiting round his feet looking on the word is not lost. Truly this was the Son of God they say, too late acknowledging this long held secret, now plain to see. Lifelessly he hangs, raised up, not now cursed, but glorified, honoured by those who look on fearful, now at last realising the truth of what they have done. Unknown before, and now, in stark contrast they worship waiting fearfully for the next act in this unfolding drama. Dare we come to him now, seeking commendation, we who have perpetrated this act, both then and now. Forgive us Lord, we didn’t know, we didn’t ask, were never told.

Simon Cawdell is Rural Dean of Bridgnorth and Vice Chair of Fulcrum.