“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. “Today you will be with me in paradise”. “Woman, behold your son”. “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” “I thirst”. “It is finished”. and “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” ‘The Seven Last Words of Jesus’ has claimed it’s space in Holy Week for more than 5 centuries of the Church’s most Reverent of Days. So much so that the celebration, now known as “GOOD FRIDAY” takes it’s place as perhaps the last vestige of real INTERDENOMINATIONAL… Christian Worship.
The creative and most colorful Sermonic Delivery of these notorious ‘Seven Utterances from The Cross’ is matched only by the Music Core of melodies that give the greatest of hymns… and recorded Gospel… presence; as these WORDS have also been transmitted in Song.
“Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do”. This ‘forgiveness’ —contingent upon ignorance… is a sharp twist to this utterance. This pathology of Church AND Society, where persons DO NOT KNOW and very simply DO NOT CARE TO KNOW that “Forgiveness” takes ROOT shock… Here… in Ignoring/not knowing… not even the ‘will to know’…”Forgiveness”.
“Today you will be with me in paradise”. So you WOULD KNOW even more power… Death is NOT FINAL… In The Cross! Living He Loved me. Dying He Saved me. Buried He Carried my sins far away. Rising He Justified… Freeing me forever —Paradise.
“Woman, behold your son”. STOP …Lifeing; and SEE, LOOK as you have never looked before. See your son, AT WAR with everything that God has Made…
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” I associate the numbers of “Street Bound Lifers” in America in 2026. New York City’s Bowery Street as a mission —where homelessness is historically American pathos; Skid Row(s); and now Philadelphia’s Kensington street… My God, my God, Have you forsaken U.S.?”
“I thirst”. Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and you that have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price.” (Isaiah, the prophet). “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness/Justice, for they will be filled.” (Jesus, the christ).
“It is finished”. tetelestai/ Forensic in accounting, not simply the eulogy of life —well lived; but an accounting for Sin. Did you notice that the word “Sin” is visibly absent from the consciousness of 2026… Church AND Society? Normalizing Sin? “It is finished”.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” SPIRIT. Spirit. spirit. Spirit of the Living God,
Fall afresh on me, Spirit of the Living God, Fall afresh on me. Break me, melt me, mold me, fill me. Spirit of the Living God, Fall afresh on me.
I shall never forget Holy Week 1985, a new ‘kid on the block’ in Brooklyn, freshly appointed Pastor to Bethel United Methodist Church in the Bedford-Stuyvasant community. The Long Island West District “7Last Words” packed the Church as I had not seen before. I had the word “Woman Behold thy Son”. When I stood to preach I began by raising the hymn, “If when you give, the best of your service, telling the world, that the Savior has come. Be not disma yed when men don’t believe you, He’ll understand and say well done”. Now I’ll tell you that I had gotten used to raising those old hymns ‘up east’ with just a couple of folks joining in, but to my surprise the congregation began to sing and rock— sending up a hunger for that ‘down home’ kinda praise like I had not yet experienced. I looked around at my District Superintendent Wilson Boots who had already delivered his word (I must acknowledge him as one of my favorite friends of the Caucasian race); Wilson had a look on his face like he forgot to fasten his seat belt and ‘this plane was airborne’! Needless to say, it was on. Thought I was back in Georgia.
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