Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots. Luke 23:34

Sometime ago I ventured into Nietzsche’s philosophy and I read his masterpiece, Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Anyone who knows this philosopher will tell you that this is not the book to begin with when reading this rather intriguing philosopher. Anyway I read it. I did not understand it. It was just a little too much for my brain. However, there was a character in the book whom I found to be extremely interesting. He was known as the ugliest man in the world. He was a man who could not bear God’s scrutiny over his life. He desired to escape from God’s presence because every time he sensed the divine, he was aware of his hideousness. Finally he did the most despicable thing. He murdered God. Of course, Nietzsche was the self-proclaimed enemy of the Christianity. His thoughts on Jesus are rather complex. They tend to waiver between extreme admiration and something else. He chose to take a different route contrary to Christianity from this allegory. Nevertheless, the allegory is a powerful one. It is the Good Friday story. Humanity could not tolerate God’s presence because they did not like their reflection in His Light. They saw God face to face and they murdered Him.

There are several passages in the Old Testament where certain prophets desired to see God’s face. The warning is always the same. No one can see God’s face and live. God’s true identity reveals our own hideous nature and it causes our demise. However, it seems like the passion story in the gospels reveals something different. Humanity ends up killing God. They saw the face of God and they murdered Him like the ugliest man in the world. It seems like God died. Does this mean God was wrong in the Old Testament? Perhaps He was afraid to show His face because He knew that Humanity would seek to destroy Him?

In reality, we cannot murder God. We just murder ourselves in the process. Even Nietzsche, who was an ardent atheist, wrote that the ugliest man fell into a state of depression. Now, he was an orphan without a God, aimless in Life without any Hope.

God was brutally murdered. His crime was that He was God Incarnate who revealed the true nature of God. This is the only purpose of His Life on earth. He wanted to show God’s face to the world. However, whenever God is manifested, His judgment is also present. We cannot divide God into compartments. God is not a loving God in one instance and then a terrifying judge in another. He is One God. His presence manifests the completeness of His being.

Where God’s presence is manifested, there is judgment. It is not the kind of judgment we find in this world, where there are accusers who rightfully or wrongfully accuse us. God’s presence just reveals who we are. There are no accusations; just revelation. The Light of the world shines brightly to reveal everything and nothing is hidden in the darkness. For some, this is a blessing. The man in one of the gospel healing stories, who was a paralytic, found relief when his sins was revealed. Jesus revealed His sins not to condemn him but to forgive. Jesus identified that the burden of sin had paralyzed his whole life. He received his judgment with joy because He knew that the judge was loving. Remember the gospels always stated that Jesus was different from the rest of the religious teachers. He spoke the Truth. He gave people the courage to come forth and receive Healing. Many came and were healed from the heavy burden of sin. Unfortunately, many also prefer the darkness because they strive in it. It is working for them. They delight in their ugliness. For these, God’s presence is burdensome and tiresome. They did not want God’s presence in this world. They did not want His scrutiny. They did not want to know that sin has distorted their lives and made them hideous. They want to remove all reminders of it. The only way to do this is to remove God. However, if we try to remove God, then we commit suicide. Without God, we cease to exist. Our whole existence depends on God.

For “In him we live and move and have our being”; as even some of your own poets have said, “For we too are his offspring.” Acts 17:28

The argument is a philosophical one. St Paul addressed a group of men who were interested in all things religious and philosophical. It was during the ancient times when there was no clear distinction between these two. However, it explains why in the Old Testament, God was so adamant in warning the people that they would die if they saw His Face. It wasn’t that God would kill them but the contrary was true. This is what we see in the Passion narrative. Humanity wants to kill God and in doing so, they end up destroying their own existence. Without God, nothing can exist. However, the world did not end at the Cross. Humanity murdered God Incarnate but it still continued in its existence. Nothing bad happened to humanity.

There are two options here for us. One is we could say that God doesn’t exist, that He is something we made up in our minds. This is the route Nietzsche chose even though he believed that Jesus was the most perfect man who existed. He did this in his convoluted manner. This option would require us to deny something deep and profound in our souls. It would require us to deny something in our souls seeking to be united with something higher and more powerful. In other words, the atheistic route would be a negation of an important aspect our spiritual makeup.

The other option which is essential for the Christian faith is recognizing God’s unconditional forgiveness. The greatest reveal at the Cross is that God’s presence judges but not the kind of judgment which condemns but forgives. Without forgiveness, we would cease to exist. Without forgiveness, there would be no humanity. There would just be death.

At the Cross, the words of forgiveness have become rather common knowledge. At least, common knowledge in terms of familiarity. The depth of their meaning is yet to be discovered. The verse tells us that Jesus utters these words and the soldiers continued to insult Him by dividing His clothes, completely oblivious to His powerful words. They were too obsessed in glorying in their hideousness. Nevertheless, they were included in the forgiveness. For many of us, especially Christians, this is hard to accept. We, as humans, understand forgiveness as a response to repentance. We cannot imagine forgiveness without a act of contrition. There might be some of us who are able to forgive someone without this action. However, our idea of forgiveness is something more beneficial for our own souls. We forgive someone to relieve ourselves from the burden of bearing grudges and carrying all the anger and hatred. None of these reflect the powerful words of Jesus at the Cross. This kind of forgiveness was unique. It is the kind of forgiveness only God can bestow upon us.

Only God can forgive us without confession. Only God’s eyes can penetrate into our souls and see our deepest desires, the kind of desires reaching beyond our sinful ones. The desire to be loved and known. God sees us and His Light reveals that we are going about the wrong way to fulfill profound desire. We are missing the mark but cannot see it. In our blindness, we continue to murder the only One who can fulfill our most deepest desire. Fortunately, there is unconditional forgiveness. He forgives us and refuses to retreat His presence from us.

The forgiveness of God is not a mere forgetting of our sins. His forgiveness means that His love continues to sustain despite our hard heartedness. The soldiers kept dividing his raiment among themselves but He still forgave them. The soldiers were still able to move and have their being in Him. God did not retreat His Life from them. In the same way, today God’s forgiveness rules in Life. It is unconditional but many walk through Life without realizing this unconditional Love. They go through Life as if they are abandoned and alone in this Life. They fail to see that God’s forgiveness walks with them every single moment in their lives. They fail to see because they are still dividing his raiment among themselves. They are lost in the world of their own self-hatred. Hatred towards God is really self-hatred because in the end, we just kill ourselves with this hatred.

However, Good Friday is not about hatred. It is about God’s judgment. He judged the world and He said, “Forgive them for they do not know what they do.”