LENT 2024: DAY 32 - Thursday March 21

 

“Our Lord spoke seven times from the Cross; these are called His Seven Last Words. In the Scriptures the dying words of only three others were recorded: Israel, Moses, and Stephen. The reason perhaps is that no others are found so significant and representative as these three. Israel was the first of the Israelites; Moses, the first of the legal dispensation; Stephen, the first Christian martyr. The dying words of each began something sublime in the history of God’s dealings with men.

 

In His goodness, Our Blessed Lord left His thoughts on dying, for He – more than Israel, more than Moses, more than Stephen – was representative of all humanity. In this sublime hour He called all His children to the pulpit of the Cross, and every word He said to them was set down for the purpose of an eternal publication and an undying consolation. There was never a preacher like the dying Christ; there was never a congregation like that which gathered about the pulpit of the Cross; there was never a sermon like the Seven Last Words.

 

The First Word:

 

The executioners expected Him to cry, for everyone pinned to the gibbet of the Cross had done it before Him… Everyone expected a cry, but no one, with the exception of the three at the foot of the Cross, expected the cry they did hear… The great Heart of the Tree of Love poured out from its depths something less a cry than a prayer – the… prayer of pardon and forgiveness:

 

“Father forgive them;

they do not know what it is they are doing.”

(Luke 23:34)

 

 

Forgive whom? Forgive enemies?... Pilate?... Herod?... The soldiers?... If they knew what they were doing… if they knew what a terrible crime they were committing by sentencing Life to death; if they knew what a perversion of justice it was to prefer Barabbas to Christ; if they knew what cruelty it was to take the feet that trod everlasting hills and pinion them to the limb of a tree; if they knew that the very Blood which they shed was capable of redeeming them, they would never be saved! Rather they would be damned! It was only the ignorance of their great sin that brought them within the pale of the hearing of that cry from the Cross.

 

Men on dying either proclaim their own innocence, or condemn the judges who sentenced them to death, or else ask pardon for sins. But Perfect Innocence asked no pardon; as Mediator between God and man He extended pardon. As High Priest Who offered Himself in sacrifice, He pleaded for sinners.

 

(Chapter 49, pgs. 790 – 793)

+ QUOTES FOR LIFE