Christ's seven last words from the cross have long been a source of reflection, challenge, and soul-searching. These simple statements contain the full range of human emotions and divine self-revelation: grief, compassion, despair, forgiveness, physical need, the promise of redemption. In many ways they embody the core of the gospel. In this brief book one of today's most noted church persons and preachers confronts the reader with the seven last word's claim on her or his life. Written with the clarity, depth, and insight that are Will Willimon's trademark, this book offers afresh the challenge and grace of the message of the Crucified One. Will Willimon is a lifelong Methodist. He is Professor of the Practice of Christian Ministry at Duke University Divinity School and retired Bishop of the North Alabama Conference of The United Methodist Church, after serving for twenty years as faculty member and Dean of the Chapel at Duke University. As Bishop, he led North Alabama's 157,000 Methodists and 792 pastors. He has authored roughly a hundred books and is widely recognized as one of Methodism's most insightful, inspiring, and challenging voices. Thank God It's Friday Encountering the Seven Last Words from the Cross By William H. Willimon Abingdon Press Copyright © 2006 The United Methodist Publishing House All right reserved. ISBN: 978-0-687-46490-6 Chapter One The First Word "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." —Luke 23:32-38 Father, forgive. Jesus speaks the first word not to us but to God. For three years he has spoken to us, preached, taught, exhorted, instructed us. Now, as we have hung him up to die, Jesus, turning from us, speaks to his Father. "Father, forgive." Having been those who once were directly addressed, we are rendered into bystanders, overhearers of a conversation deep in the heart of the Trinity. Now, at the end, the once adoring crowds are gone; no one is left to listen to Jesus but the Father. And the word he speaks is a word that only God can dare say to God, for only God can forgive. We have no right to pray this prayer for Jesus. And what does the Son say to the Father? Of all the things he might pray, he prays, "Father, forgive. They know not what they do." I've spent most of my life trying to figure out what I'm doing. Isn't that how they defined "human growth" in that child development class? "Human growth is the process of increasing self-awareness"? We begin with naked instinct, mechanical reaction, hormonal response, but gradually, with puberty and a college education, gradually we learn where we are and what we're doing. We learn to seek pleasure and to avoid pain. We learn to avoid certain unproductive, dysfunctional behavior and to engage in more fruitful, beneficial conduct, and, now possessed with a keen sense of "self-awareness" we move reflectively, knowledgeably about the world, "our" world that, through our knowledge, we have made our own. Yeah, right. I took a course in seminary in Christian ethics. Christian ethics is the weighing of various ethical options and, through careful, rational deliberation, discerning the one right action and then pursuing that option in a prudential way. Yeah, right. I made an A in that course in rational ethical deliberation only to flunk when I tried actually to do that in life. One little problem with our attempts to be thoughtful, prudent, reflective, and careful people: we're also the ones who on a Friday—just rationally following the best of Western jurisprudence—tortured to death the very Son of God. Why? Well, we didn't know what we were doing. We did not then know, do not now know, will never know what we're doing. We're all stumbling in the dark. I once knew a man who, on sentry duty one dark night in France in the Second World War, was surprised to get a perfect shot of a German soldier coming toward him down a country road. When he went up to examine the body, he discovered it to be one of his best friends from another unit. He did not seem to be much consoled by my, "But you didn't know what you were doing." Meeting with my stockbroker about my pension, I watched as he pulled out the charts and the graphs. I asked, "Does this mean that you have now elevated stockbrokerage from the level of casino gambling?" He said, "No, it means that I am giving you the illusion that I really know what I'm doing." But we don't know what we're doing! It's a fact, not an excuse. Most of our malice is exercised without aforethought. Roman soldiers, Jewish Sanhedrin, raving mob—how did each of you decide to murder God's Son? Well, we thought we were standing up for law and order. We believed we were supporting good biblical values. We were just soldiers obeying orders. We had this gut feeling. We weren't actually in charge of the proceedings; it was done by the government. Everything was done in accordance with the best legal advice. In truth, it is as Jesus names it: "They don