Build Bridges, Not Barriers

Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing (Luke 23:34, NIV, 

1^st of Jesus’ last 7 words).

Luke’s research transformed his lifetime of tinkering medically with body mechanics. The Beloved Greek Physician sits firmly hunched over a writing table, quietly reading to himself: “I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning … so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught” (Luke 1:3-4).

Peeking over his shoulder, I note his greeting to Theophilus, a Roman official. This cultured Gentile doctor-scientist has met a magnetic little Hebrew that we know as the well-educated Christian Evangelist, Paul. Once known as Saul, Paul has serious health issues, but details remain sketchy at best. 

The two men have bonded beyond normal doctor--patient relations and Luke has become one of a few non-Jews converting to “The Way,” led by Paul the Jewish Evangelist. A Tentmaker, Paul is a man with a contagious faith. He currently serves as Luke’s mentor while Luke travels as Paul’s private physician and traveling companion.

The beloved Dr. Luke has found a resource for life much superior to his Greek heritage. Excited at finding unprecedented entree to primitive sources of this little known Way of Jesus; Luke anxiously shares with Theophilus his carefully researched subject. He has interviewed available eyewitnesses and overcome the challenges for presenting an accurate, historical, and objective account of this truly humanitarian message and ministry of the Palestinian Jesus.

Even those not convinced of Luke’s cause, appreciate his accuracy and eye for detail. Using minimal oils, Luke creates a sparsely painted portrait revealing both the unexpected death of Jesus and the apparent failure of his disciples. His details add color as he chronicles the extraordinary life of this Jew. a man in unique in dying on a Roman cross for non-criminal behavior, whose peerless life propagates a relational faith that challenges followers to forgive without being asked to forgive.

Luke reveals Roman soldiers gambling for the only valuable item Jesus owned; a seamless robe. He reveals authorities sneering at Jesus’ teachings. He reports eyewitnesses watching life’s forces painfully dribble from the tortured body of Jesus. People watched him endure deplorable humiliation in his suffering, climaxing in a cruel crescendo of anguish and death. Luke details for Theophilus the witnesses that heard him pray, “. . .Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34-46, NASV).

Jesus’s disciples could not have been any more surprised than the group of Hindu youth George Buttrick described. For the very first time; they heard an account of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount. “Love your enemies, bless them that curse you… do good to them that hate you.”

Commenting on this obvious contradiction in Jesus’ words, Buttrick wrote, “The signs of pardon in nature and human nature are cloudy and few: not by them can we be sure of pardon.”¹

Human experience rises and falls like the roller coaster at Mall of America, while social scientists scrub away the “s” word and attempt to erase it from society’s vocabulary of communicable words. Experts compound the problem by converting individual and corporate failures into symptoms of the psyche, denying any possible existence of a problem once called sin. Now victims rather than offenders; we charge our medical-social community with the cure of our diagnosed “diseases” and they reciprocate by translating our offenses into psychiatric insights. This leaves us socially irresponsible and well intentioned--guilt-free. concepts of a failed psycho-socio therapy.

Meantime, our failed socio-psycho cure continues its assault. We struggle with flaws and imperfections whose existence we disown and deny but remain unable to cure or erase. At every turn, we stand nose to nose with poverty, pride, and prejudice, and perversions.  Tribal identities and ethnic groupings assault and violate one another and we expand our vocabularies to include ethnic cleansing and genocide as descriptive behaviors. Environmental pollution threatens the garden we once believed God created. We stand and declare corporately and individually school shootings “are not our fault!”

No longer able or willing to separate good from bad, right from wrong; wholesome and healthy living no longer appear as viable option for whole nations. With hope fleeing under the darkness of night, suicide provides a leading cause of death among our young and restless. As our world turns about in its frantic search for new meanings; we--the greatest nation in the world—find ourselves described as “the bluebird trying to sing its song while sitting on the dung heap.”²

The church stands with those attempting to push mediocrity aside and recover from a culture more concerned with making money than morals and manners. I loved my years as a pastor. I was privileged to watch high-achievers transition from school to career, from graduate study into professional service, and seeing them succeed. Yet, life always managed to find me and deliver a reality check that confronted me with the necessity of helping another human being escape from this success-oriented sewer of self-discovery.

I found that answers to humanity’s deepest needs come only with the healing one finds in rediscovering essential forgiveness as announced by Jesus from his cross.     His use of the word reveals him as one that lived as no other man ever lived. In speaking “forgiveness,” Jesus spoke as a Loyal Son conveying devotion to his beloved father. He spoke to God as no man ever spoke to God before--as a Son to his Heavenly Father. This unique bond between father and son reveals a deeply moving, beautiful and mystical relationship that reminds us of our own excited awe as expectant human fathers.

“I know I could get better if my daddy was here,” whispered six-year-old Paula from her hospital bed as she longed for dad’s comfort. When United Press heard this story of a young Pennsylvania girl dying of leukemia, they jumped on the airwaves and extended a hurry-up call for dad to come quickly from his work in Washington, D. C.

This God we wish we knew better was seen often in the lives of Old Testament prophets. When the time was right, Jesus taught us to pray to “our Father in heaven (cf. Hebrews 1:3). His life and ministry taught us, more than anything else that God is more anxious to get acquainted with us than we are with him. Through him, we learn to share our lives with God more openly. His suffering and final words on the cross prompt us to conclude that in him we have the clearest snapshot ever taken of God Almighty.

Gracie was a preschooler when she began thinking about God. In Kindergarten, she discovered “the everlasting arms” belonged to God rather than her father. Her Sunday school teacher revealed God as the great all-seeing eye; consequently Gracie demanded of dad: “What does God look like?” Dad scooped her up, wiped her nose, and showed her a window box of blooming Begonias. He reminded her they are as beautiful as they are because “God is in them.”                                           

Later, Gracie discovered child-care books that suggested that according to educational experts she and her brother should have become juvenile delinquents or gibbering idiots. Ike took money from the church collection plate and was so soundly spanked he could not sit for hours. When Gracie told a lie, she discovered it was an abomination to the Lord, not just a budding imagination.

Gracie recalled arriving early at a preaching engagement with her preacher-father. As they climbed the hill, dad startled staid New Englanders arriving early by announcing in his rich tenor voice, “For the Lord God Omnipotent Reigneth.”

Dad stopped, grinned broadly, and confided to little Susie. “You know the first thing I’m going to do when I get to heaven . . .? I’m going to stand up beside the Almighty and fling out a few stars to the Lord  … This,” wrote Grace Nies Fletcher, “is the way my father introduced me to my best friend, the Almighty.”³

As Gracie grew to adulthood, she enjoyed her relationship with her preacher-father, just as much as Jesus enjoyed Joseph, his surrogate father, carpenter. Like Jesus, Gracie grew into adulthood understanding a loving heavenly father.

Jesus faithfully built bridges during his earthly ministry by repeatedly sharing in the human issues of his earth-bound existence. When Peter later denied Jesus, Judas betrayed him, and the multitude disowned him; his consolation came from the heavenly Father whose will he had flawlessly pursued with the child-like devotion of a loving son. No one ever spoke to God quite like Jesus.

Consequently, Jesus accurately assessed our human inability to live only by the bread that feeds our bodies. He knew experimentally and experientially that we find real life only in the living bread that comes from the hand of God. Thus, Jesus modeled a role for us to imitate, but we must willingly take the risks of faith he recommended. He taught us by his example that it is our behavior that best reveals the kind of God we worship and not our words. Jesus taught us nothing that he did not first model; he talked nothing that he did not first practice. By walking and talking with God in his personal daily life, Jesus revealed how we can experience healthy and wholesome spirituality

Few of us can point out the faults of others without stepping out from behind the tree of our own failures. Not so with Jesus! Even his severest critics admitted he was a “good man,” an acceptable teacher, and that he lived as no one else ever lived. His word of forgiveness became as contemporary as the newspaper detailing how an eleven year-old killer now learns at fifteen how to set goals and study hard, in preparation for college.

“You’re making great progress,” the Judge concluded, “but you know you’re going to have to continue.” That same newspaper reported alleged drug sales, police extortion, and the obscenity of political mud-slinging with lobbyists and special interest groups parlaying fifteen million dollars into transforming “the stork of wisdom and truth” into the “degenerate mating of money and politics.”

“Father … forgive …” meant far more than faltering tongues repeat; for Jesus’ life displayed consistency of character that harmonized beliefs and behaviors into a symphony of moral wholeness. The life of Jesus dramatized the kind of God Jesus loved and served, a gracious and giving God who loves personally, powerfully, and sacrificially.

We cannot take Jesus seriously without discovering he neither condones nor condemns our world. To the contrary, he elevated life’s most powerful motive and initiated a singularly creative act of loving grace. He offers unequalled acceptance, intending to transform the weakest of characters into wholesome and healthy personalities fortified with rock-ribbed integrity, honor, and strength.            

Jewish wisdom suggests that as a man thinks within himself, “so is he” (Proverbs 23:7 NASV). The preaching-teaching of Jesus grew out of the life he lived. He became an honored prophet-preacher-teacher by integrating his own integrity. Said another way, he practiced uprightness of character by walking the walk and talking the talk. Whether talking, or walking, or both; Jesus lived his beliefs and behaviors as one and the same.

No wonder the disciples found no pretense; for Jesus recognized the needs of others before satisfying his own. They saw him pursue private prayer with assiduous consistency. They heard him speak without respect of persons, recognizing neither master nor slave, neither superior nor inferior. They accompanied him, watching him live without compromise. They observed his submissiveness at all times, never detouring from life’s mission, and never allowing his ministry and mission to become sidetracked or derailed by selfish personal desires.

They relished his winsomeness as he lived life to its fullest, always integrating personality and practice into one powerful living package of human wholeness. They never saw Jesus become a victim. They never heard him indulge himself at the expense of another, or beg question of who he was with his heavenly Father. They saw him avoid ego-tripping with undeviating consistency. They recognized him as a superior model of everything he ever taught, and never detected any selfishness or mediocrity.

It was not by accident, or spoken loosely, that George Bernard Shaw left this choice word when he allegedly announced that the last Christian known among us died on a cross. As a man thinks, so is he. Yes, as a man thinks, he acts. As a man thinks, therefore, he forgives.

Forgiveness gives up lesser claims of recompense, revenge, and retaliation. It neither condones nor condemns. It forgoes justice when it could rightfully claim it. It shows mercy. It absolves unsparingly and forgets actively. Forgiveness differs from the revenge that often haunts humanity. Revenge calls for avenging; it extends broken relationships. Forgiveness repairs breaches and provides potential restoration and healing that can repair and eliminate ruptures. Forgiveness builds bridges rather than barriers.

Knowing the king faced possible death, the Chaplain urged Frederick Wilhelm, King of Prussia, to forgive his enemies. “Write to your Brother (unforgiveablest of beings), after I am dead” Frederick instructed his wife, saying, “that I forgave him.”

The Chaplain suggested Wilhelm extend his forgiveness without delay, but the king wisely replied, “No, after I am dead: that will be safer.”⁴ The king, like many of us, recognized the weakness of his humanity.

We judge others according to the thoughts of our own hearts, that being our natural human response. Jesus recalled a certain Pharisee who raised his eyes heavenward and thanked God he was not as other men. The man lacked any sense of personal failure, felt no need of forgiveness, and knew no reason to forgive another.

He thought he had it all and saw no internal failure; thus, he refused to confess any sin, failure, or weakness. He needed no forgiveness. Consequently, he believed he had no sin and lost his capacity for developing nobility and character.

Simultaneously, one of Jewish society’s least appreciated--a despicable Publican, could find nothing to his credit, in spite of his probable wealth and social position. He dropped his eyes earthward, whispering a choked, but honest, confession. He viewed himself honestly, for what he really was; he confessed his admitted failure and allowed its goading to lift him up the elevator of “GRACE,” God’s Relentless Actions Confronting Everyone. He had it all!

We find it easier to build protective barriers than to build bridges, because we tend to act as we think. We lack the nerve to openly commit serious sin, but we often approve inexcusable behavior with our silent consent. Thus, it comes as no surprise when Robert Dugan, then Director of Public Affairs for the National Association of Evangelicals, tells us we should not be surprised at the increase of sex crimes.

As long as society willingly tolerates pornography, Dugan insisted, “including evangelical Christians … the incidence of rape, child molestation, and sex abuse will grow.”⁵      Few of us would actively commit a serious sexual sin, but we will not confront it. We allow sex in our media advertising because it sells. We capitalize on it in our journalism because it titillates a buying public.

We would never think of attacking another person with a butcher knife, but we do not think twice when shoving a trusting friend into the paper shredder of criticism. We deliberately dodge tasks that need doing, but we verbally whittle down to size people that annoy us by conscientiously completing their tasks.

Until God can change how we think; he cannot change how we behave. It was the death of Jesus that exposed us to the utter necessity of this thing we call forgiveness. Paul Scherer described three crosses on that hill outside of Jerusalem. On one, he found a thief experiencing death - grinning, hopeless, sterile, and taunting. On the opposite cross, he saw a thief experiencing a ray of light that Scherer describes as a ray of sunshine breaking through “to etch out of the shadows a face with a prayer on its lips and a brooding glory in its eyes.”

Between the two, and dividing them this way from that--as different as heaven is from hell; Scherer announces “the Word of God, at its uttermost become deed!”⁶

“IF” we agree that forgiveness is an essential word in our human vocabulary, we must be confronted by the necessity of Jesus’ mission. In speaking forgiveness; Jesus loved as no one of us ever loved. But, who of us needs his forgiveness? The Jewish people? The Roman soldiers? The Jewish leaders that savagely crucified him when unable to control him?

Converting the institution of traditional Jewish Religion into waste rather than worship, those established leaders destroyed the one-man good enough to brazenly challenge their self-serving system by going about doing “good” in the name of an omniscient God. They perjured themselves by perverting his message and his ministry. They could not pronounce a death sentence, but they could charge him with legal interference that required capital punishment via Rome. They could manipulate the legal system and deliver him into the hands of the Roman Commander; rather than punish him for what he was really guilty of … breaking Jewish tradition.

“Forgive them,” Jesus reminds us. “Forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing” (Luke 23:34).

The rough-hewn cross given Jesus by the Romans, became the one thing truly his. But if the cross was his “alone,” humanity is not saved. If the cross was only “his” punishment, we are hardly worth saving.

Some of the Roman soldiers obviously acted out of circumstantial evidence, which was all they had, but they preferred to keep everything peaceful. They did not ask for this ignoble task of executing Jesus; they simply did their job. They preserved the justice demanded by rabbinical rabble-rousers although most of them would have gladly traded duty in Palestine for most any place else. This crossroads nation on the eastern Mediterranean was known as a hotbed for radicals and counter-revolutionaries and they were by providence in the right place at the wrong time.

Jewish ignorance, on the other hand, was judicial. God had made himself known among them from the days of the Exodus. When Moses led them away from Egypt’s slavery, they challenged him with their contemptuous complaints, claiming to be victims rather than victors. Rejecting the circumstances of their newly found freedom, they blamed God for the difficulties required for maintaining their freedom. They petulantly pouted, coveting the leeks and onions of former slave days and clamoring cravenly at the sight of giants in the Promised Land. Here and there; a prophet parted the clouds of God’s glory, but only a small remnant remained faithful to God’s covenant.

 When Socrates died, the world realized its poverty.  When Jesus died; the wealth of the world increased profoundly, for his death clarified humanity’s pretense as never before. It revealed sham and infamy within human nature that loosened irresponsibly to act out at will. Jesus, on the other hand, exposed the ultimate fact of true religion and revealed a kind God who calls humanity to the divine bargaining table.

The Christian faith reveals what no other does, a God who can forgive, and does forgive. Jesus did not tolerate the wrongs of humanity passively, as we often think. He confronted human behavior at its very worst, and chose to confront and endure its effrontery with the power of love and positive purity. He challenges our twenty-first century confronting us with an astounding truth, an ultimate fact: when we quit dealing with life God’s way, life quits holding together our way. Though other truths remain relative; this absolute truth deserves our serious consideration!

Like the Pharisee, our humanity rejoices because “I am not like other people.” It was the Publican--the sinner--rather than the Pharisee, the legally moral man, nonetheless, who experienced the hand of friendship from God. It was the Publican; the one that cast his eyes down and prayed, “Forgive …” my prejudice, ill will, gossip, self-righteousness and other trash that twists my life out of shape.

“Forgive me” that I may see others through eyes of love, understanding, and appreciation, rather than a heart filled with racial bigotry, ethnic superiority, and the greed that drives consumers to acquire at any cost.

When Merrell encountered a blocked prayer life; self-examination revealed behavior that called him to apologize. Calling each person he had wronged, Merrell confessed his wrong attitude and asked each for forgiveness. Able to pray once more, the Lord’s Prayer brought new meaning to Merrell and when called to speak at a Christian campus later, he shared his experience with the Dean of Students.

The Dean suggested Merrell lead the students in that same prayer. Prayers began in hushed tones but on reaching “Forgive us. . .” some students began weeping. Others never completed the prayer. In the months following, numerous reports came back detailing a reviving of faith. Prayer came alive in the lives of those students when they realized their refusal to forgive another destroyed the bridge over which they had to walk.

As Jesus spoke it, forgiveness opens the door of truth and unlocks our understanding. His word of forgiveness reveals God as The Reconciling Redeemer, the great forgiver. God works through the cross to make selfish people unselfish, treacherous people trustworthy, cruel people loving, foul people clean and suffering people healthy. Nothing else, short of another miracle, can do it and it all began at Calvary.

The cross stands like an exclamation point, being more than a mechanical liturgy. It extends a moral and spiritual invitation to us, inviting each of us to reconcile with one another by first becoming reconciled to God.

Eating meat and smoking cigarettes was contrary to his culture, but fifteen-year-old Mahatma Gandhi chose to begin the practice. He felt terribly guilty and alone as he committed these social “sins.” Finally; he surrendered them, signed his confession and vowed never to do them again. He took his written confession to his ailing father who watched his son’s progress with great pride.

“What will father say,” Gandhi wondered? This question resolved itself when he saw his father read his confession and watched his father’s face food with grief. “Oh, Father, Never again shall I do such things” cried young Gandhi.

Without looking at the weeping boy even once, the elder Gandhi slowly shredded the paper in his hands, scattered the fluttering pieces across the floor, and fell back on his cot with a groan. Gandhi later admitted that no punishment ever hurt as much as the pain he felt while watching his father’s tears rolling down his sunken cheeks. From that day forward, young Gandhi’s devotion to his father remained unchecked.⁷

When Gandhi later experienced the harsh bigotry separating the English-speaking world from his people of color, he suggested that pious Christians offered nothing “that the lives of men of other faiths had failed to give.”⁸ After reading the Bible about Jesus, Gandhi confided to another friend, “If Christians would really live the teachings of Christ, as found in the Bible, all of India would be Christian …”

Evidence suggests forgiveness abundantly meets a universal human need, restoring bridges and reduces barriers. Whether Jewish pride, Roman ignorance, or mass apathy; it no longer matters. Some of us still repeat that age-old question the lawyer used to justify himself when Jesus told of the Good Samaritan. ”And who is my neighbor?” Especially is this true when we are blinded to the reality of our own deeds.

A lady complained vigorously to her pastor about her many trials of life. As they visited, he noticed the embroidery she had laid aside. “My, this is an ugly piece of work,” he observed. “It is nothing but a tangle of threads.”

“But Pastor, you’re looking at it from the wrong side,” she observed, turning it over for him to inspect.

“That’s right,” he admitted, “and so it is with God. He tries to help us turn life right side up and see its true beauty.”

Looking at life on the wrong side always results in seeing the tangles. The cross calls us to turn life right side up and live it as we were meant to live. Love never promised more mercy than at the cross. Forgiveness never became more plentifully than at the cross. Selfishness never appeared more sinful than at the cross. In bearing his cross; Jesus blended divine compassion and human obedience into at-one-meant, and Easter resulted.

A clear picture of Easter reveals a loving God building a bridge for a failing humanity. Easter visualizes a good shepherd counting ninety-nine sheep but going out into the night to find one still-lost sheep. It points to a loving father that stands in his doorway scanning the horizon, yearning to fill his empty arms and aching heart with a restored relationship with his prodigal son. He longs daily for the day when “my boy” comes home and we can again live as family.

Easter painted “Amazing Grace” in detailed color as it searched among slave traders and guided a ship’s captain named Isaac Newton into harbor where he discovered beauty, peace, and delight he never before experienced, and never more beautifully expressed than in his classic hymn, “Amazing Grace.”

A small aircraft left Newport, N. H. February 12 at 1600 hours. For the engineer and two teachers this flight did not differ from any other. At 1619 hours, Concord airport called for “Winds Aloft,” but only silence answered. When nothing further came, a five-state alert sent the Civil Air Patrol, the Air Force, the Air National Guard, and others into a furious search and rescue action. The combined team systematically searched coastal waters and slogged through twenty-inch snows on land.

Weekend training missions became search parties, totaling five-hundred eighty-three sorties with eleven-hundred twenty flying hours, or one plane flying eight hours daily for one-hundred forty days. One hundred leads melted into oblivion, but five months later--in July--the body of the pilot washed ashore on Long Island Sound.

Somewhere over the Sound, perhaps in a sudden squall; aircraft Tri-pacer N2705P finished its course just minutes short of home. So it is with life. So it was with Jesus on his cross, so we thought. But through his death, we now know he spoke a clear word about God and a revealing word from God. It was a necessary word that we needed to hear.

Yes; even if it was only a word;, it was a word that spoke into existence the healing of broken promises, the restoration of shattered lives, and the transformation of squandered years into living joy. Roy Burkhart was right when he wrote, “If men could comprehend forgiveness, a generation of reborn men would evolve.”⁹

This one word from the cross provides the missing link in the divine chain and lifts us up-and-out of our abyss of hurts. Through this word we experience hope, happiness, and healing. Forgiveness brings beneficial acts of unprecedented love. It has resulted in an army of grateful men, women, boys, and girls across the centuries that have discovered failure needs never be final.

Finally: millions are living among us who have benefited enormously from this gracious and richly fulfilling life they currently live out in fulfillment of his word.

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                  1 George Arthur Buttrick, So We Believe, So We Pray. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1951), p. 93.

              2 Op Cite, Menninger, p. 256.

              3 Golden Moments of Religious Inspiration, ed. by Ruth M. Elmquist. (New York: McGraw-Hill Book Company, 1954), pp. 1926, “What Does God Look Like?” by Grace Nies Fletcher.
              4 Op Cite, Buttrick, p. 100.
              5 Donald E. Wildmon, The Case against Pornography. (Wheaton: Victor Books, A Division of Scripture Press Publications, Inc., 1986), p. 23.
              6 Paul Scherer. The Interpreters Bible, George Arthur Buttrick, Ed. (Nashville: Abingdon Press, Vol. 8, 1952), p. 406.
              7 Janette Eaton, Fighter Without a Sword. (New York: Wm. Morrow & Co., 1950), pp. 26-27.
              8 Gandhi's Autobiography. The Story of My Experiment with Truth” by M. K. Gandhi. (Washington: Public Affairs Press, 1948), p. 172.
              9  Roy Burkhart. The Secret of Life. (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1950), p. 73.
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I am walkingwithwarner.blogspot.com

*From Conclusions From the Cross, Warner, 2002

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