Prayer on the Cross (Luke 23:32-34)

It is likely that in Israel today hundreds, if not thousands, of people made their way to one of the optional sites for Calvary in order to experience the place. For some, it would have been a lifetime ambition to be there; for others, it would have been one more tourist site to visit in the Holy Land. It is certainly moving to visit them. Many of them would depend on their guides for information about various features connected to the sites. But we don’t have to go to Israel to go to Calvary. We can go there without leaving the building. Yet we always need a guide, and we should always go in the right frame of mind. The Guide is the Holy Spirit. 

It is a place for reverence because God is there, for reflection on what took place there when Jesus died, and for refreshment for our souls, and usually the three responses are simultaneous. We need the Holy Spirt, the heavenly Guide, to explain to us the significance of Calvary.

Luke mentions four details in verse 34 about what happened there: the location, the process, the prayer of Jesus and what the soldiers did with his clothes. As with other places in his Gospel he mentions details that other writers don’t mention and one of them is the prayer that Jesus made for the soldiers.

The location and the process

The soldiers had taken Jesus to Golgotha. John tells us that it was located outside the city alongside a busy road that people used regularly, so many people would see the victims as they hung on their crosses. Mark tells us that the crucifixion took place at the third hour, or nine in the morning.

Luke can be brief in his reference to crucifixion here because most of his original readers would have seen one. We may not be familiar with what took place. The cross was usually shaped like a T. The person was nailed to the cross: his arms would be stretched out on the cross beam, and he would be nailed to it through his hands; his feet would be nailed to the pole.

Crucifixion was designed to be very painful, and it was intended to be a slow death, with victims sometimes surviving for some days in great distress. Because the weight was borne by the person’s arms, he would find it difficult to breathe and often he would try to raise himself in order to breathe, and these repeated attempts would lead to exhaustion.

The offence of which the victim was found guilty was usually written above him on the cross. Luke reminds us of the charge against Jesus that was brought by the Sanhedrin: ‘This is the King of the Jews’ (Luke 23:38). The soldiers would have positioned the words in a place where all could read them.  

Jesus was placed between the two criminals. No doubt, this was the place where Barabbas would have been if he had not been released. As we think about this, we can see that once again Jesus is numbered with the transgressors, and the number he has here is number one. Although he had never sinned, there he was, one of the three who were to be put to death. At the same time, we can see that he was near to the criminals, a fact that becomes important later when there is a dialogue between them and Jesus.

Paul reminds the Galatians that in Old Testament law a person who was hanged on a tree for a crime was under God’s curse or punishment.  Such a person was facing divine judgement against his wrongdoing. Of course, it was possible for a person to be unjustly there, and such people would not be under a curse (Peter was crucified, but he was not cursed by God when that took place). When we consider the three crucified persons mentioned in the text, two deserved to be judged by God and one, Jesus, did not deserve to be judged for any personal sin because he had never committed any. Why was he there? He was there to pay the penalty, suffer the divine judgement due against his people for their sins. So,while undeserving of the curse, he endured it.

The prayer of Jesus

The first words of Jesus on the cross are a prayer, but they are not a prayer for himself even although he was in great need at that time. The prayer was for the soldiers who had crucified him. So it is a specific prayer, focussed on those who had been cruel to him. It is also a surprising prayer because he probably has not seen them until a short time previously.

This prayer contrasts with what the other speakers near the cross had to say. Luke tells us what the Jewish leaders shouted about. They scoffed at the saving abilities of the suffering Saviour, as did the soldiers (vv. 35-37). There is a difference between their scoffing – the rulers were marked by malice and the soldiers by contempt. But how different were their words to those of Jesus.

In this petition, we can see that Jesus acts according to his own teaching that he had given to his disciples in his Sermon on the Mount: ‘You have heard that it was said, You shall love your neighbour and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven’ (Matt. 5:43-45).

Jesus could have spoken other words about the soldiers, such as condemning them for their cruelty. Yet from his heart there rose an intense desire for these men to be forgiven. The degree of his intensity may be seen in the fact that the verb is an imperfect, indicating he was saying it more than once, not that he merely said the petition once. There was eagerness and determination in his request.

This petition is a fulfilment of prophecy. Isaiah had predicted that this would happen when the Messiah was on the cross: ‘yet he bore the sin of many, and makes intercession for the transgressors’ (Isa. 53:12). Of course, virtually the whole of that chapter is fulfilled at Calvary as were numerous other scriptures. Those predictions reveal the great focus that there is in the Bible on the life and death of Jesus and how what happened there was mapped out beforehand.

The petition is one side of a conversation, and we don’t hear the other side. Yet it is part of a special conversation, a conversation in which God is involved. We know that the Spirit would have led him to pray in this way. The divine response to the actions of the soldiers was that the Saviour should pray for their forgiveness.

The fact that Jesus made this petition is evidence that all kinds of sin can be forgiven, including being guilty of putting him to death. Their sin was one of ignorance as Jesus indicates, although there were some aspects of their action that would not be classified as ignorance. For example, it was not right that they should be indifferent about how they treated the condemned; nor was it right that they should merely follow orders. But they did not know who Jesus was. They did not know that he was the eternal Son of God, the One who had come into the world to save sinners. They did not know that their actions were leading Jesus to the place where he could pay the penalty for sin. So they were ignorant of those important matters, and Jesus made that ignorance an argument in his prayer.

What is the extent of forgiveness that Jesus prays for? There must be a special dimension to the forgiveness because the obvious feature of the petition is that Jesus does not say to them, ‘I forgive you.’ That is different from suggesting he did not want to forgive them, because he did want them to be pardoned. Yet there is a process to forgiveness which everyone must follow, and which Jesus followed here. The process includes approaching the Father for his pardon. That is what we must do as well. We ask the Father to forgive us our sins. That is what Jesus taught in the Lord’s Prayer. He interceded with authority on this occasion, but he interceded.

The gambling of the soldiers

The obvious aspect of the soldiers’ response is their collective indifference to the suffering Saviour. Yet their response also suggests that there must have been something different about the attire of Christ because as far as we can see they had no interest in the clothes that the criminals had been wearing. This could point to the clothes of Jesus as being more valuable. Had he still been wearing the clothes that Herod gave him in sarcasm? John also indicates that the soldiers did not want to divide the tunic of Jesus.

Another unusual aspect of their behaviour is that it was a fulfilment of prophecy. In Psalm 22:16-8 it says: ‘For dogs encompass me; a company of evildoers encircles me; they have pierced my hands and feet—I can count all my bones—they stare and gloat over me; they divide my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.’ They pierced him, they guarded him, they gloated at him, and they gambled for his clothes, all of which had been predicted.

The soldiers are an interesting study. They were indifferent, they were selfish, they were callous, yet within a few hours they were saying something very different because they bore witness to Jesus as the Son of God. Their eyes were opened by the light that shone out of the darkness of the cross and they were led captive by the Captain of salvation.

Lessons

One lesson that we can take from the example of Jesus is that we can pray expectantly for great sinners. We should also learn from the example of Jesus that we should pray for sinners who are doing something against us at this very moment. Stephen followed the example of Jesus when he prayed for those who were stoning him.

A second lesson from the Saviour’s response is the importance of saying the right thing at the right time. Several different responses could have been made to the soldiers. They could have been rebuked for their indifference and punished for their cruelty. Yet Jesus revealed his heart for them by praying for them to the heavenly Father, the one who was able to forgive them. Some soldiers sent to arrest Jesus on a previous occasion returned and said that ‘Never man spoke like this man.’ I wonder what these soldiers said when they went back to their barracks later that evening.

A third lesson from this incident is to note that there were no immediate positive indications that the prayer of Jesus had been heard. The soldiers continued with their task and then gambled over his clothes. After that, they joined in the derision and the mocking that was shown towards the Saviour. Surely, Jesus prayed expectantly, but he did not base his comfort about the prayer on what he could see taking place around him. Rather, his comfort came from having committed them to God.

A fourth lesson is that every unconverted sinner is ignorant to some extent of what they are doing when they reject the gospel. None of them realise that rejecting Jesus is the greatest sin of which they can be guilty. They don’t know the value of the salvation that they are rejecting or the power of the Saviour whose offer they are dismissing.

A fifth lesson is to note that one of the soldiers wore the garment of Jesus after being to Calvary. In doing so, he was a picture of what happens to sinners when they believe in Jesus. They are clothed in the garments of salvation and wear the seamless robe of his perfect life as their acceptance in the sight of God. Are we wearing that garment?