remember sitting very early one Good Friday morning and trying to understand the meaning of the above words. How could anyone possibly utter these words after all that had happened to them and all that had taken place?

Here was the Son of God, cruelly treated beyond measure, scourged and beaten, spat upon, mocked and reviled and now a broken body hung up on a wooden cross, suffering excruciating pain as nails were driven and hammered into His hands and feet.

Yet the worst was to come as He felt the heavy load of the sin of the world laden on His shoulders and His Father turning His face away (as He hates sin but loves the sinner). What desolation and loneliness must have overtaken Him, causing Him to cry out, "Father, why have you forsaken me?" Surely that pain was even worse than all the cruelty to His body!

hink back to the first Adam in the Garden of Eden. How perfect and beautiful it was as God formed Adam from the dust of ground, made him in His own image and breathed into him the breath of life. Then He formed Eve from Adam’s rib and God brought them together for the first marriage. They were naked and pure but innocent because, as yet, they knew no sin.

Then we see the devil in the form of a serpent (how he longs to spoil everything that’s good) and he whispers a doubt in Eve’s ear. Eve knew that God had forbidden them to eat the fruit of a certain tree and that should have been enough, but no, she listened as he whispered this doubt - "Did God really say that?" As she listened, she was tempted, ate the fruit of the tree, giving some to her husband, and so began the fall of the first Adam. All that God had made so beautiful was marred and God had to do something about it, so He promised that in time a second Adam (His only Son who was spotless and sinless) would become a sacrifice to redeem the world.

So back to where we were at the beginning of this story. Here He hangs, the last Adam, suspended in agony in a cross, yet He cries to His Father, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do!"

Could we forgive like that, I wonder? Only the deep love of God for mankind could bring such words from the lips of the Saviour upon the cross.

e live in a world where there is so much hatred and suffering that people no longer forgive but bear grudges that can sometimes last for twenty years! So sad, but then, if the devil can stop us from seeking God’s love and stop the scales falling from our eyes, then he has won.

I pray that we will have our eyes and heart open to the message of the cross and see Jesus as the conquering Hero, offering forgiveness and life everlasting. He rose in triumph from the grave and defeated sin and death, making the act of forgiveness the best thing that has ever happened to us!

Ruby

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