Father forgive them

“To be a Christian means to forgive the inexcusable
because God has forgiven the inexcusable in you.”
C.S. Lewis

(a hibiscus after the rain / Julie Cook / 2016

“The judgement of my sins revealed itself at Calvary.
Do I wish a separate, and stricter, judgement to come upon everyone else?
Can I maintain such a wish as the figure on the Cross looks at me?
No.
For in that look I am bidden to the region where all is forgiveness and for which I have been invited to prepare myself every time I have said “and forgive us our trespasses, as we forgive those who trespass against us.”
Not only have I not been asked to participate in judging the sins of other” I have been offered the noble opportunity to join my voice with that of the Crucified as he cries out, “Father forgive them.”
Dr. Thomas Howard
The Crucifix

People often wonder what it is that makes Christianity so different from other monotheistic religions…

Is it…
A Triune God…
The holy mystical actualization that Jesus is be both God and man…
The saving Grace found in the Resurrection…

Or is what separates the followers of Christ from those of other believers of other religions and faiths to be found simply on the lips of a dying man…
“Father forgive them….”

Who is a God like you,
who pardons sin and forgives the transgression
of the remnant of his inheritance?
You do not stay angry forever
but delight to show mercy.
You will again have compassion on us;
you will tread our sins underfoot
and hurl all our iniquities into the depths of the sea.
Micah 17:18-19

For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.
Colossians 1:13-14