Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 289 · October 16
They Know Not
“Then said Jesus, Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do. And they parted his raiment, and cast lots.”
We can hear this prayer without flinching because we have already decided who "them" means. Usually we picture the soldiers, following orders far from where the decision was made. That way the prayer covers them neatly and stops well short of us.
Two honest objections stand in the way, and the first is about the text itself. This sentence is missing from several of the earliest copies of Luke's Gospel, and many Bibles mention that in a note at the foot of the page. It is better to know that now than to stumble on it later. Yet Luke's second book shows the same kind of prayer in the church's first days. Stephen kneels under the stones, while the witnesses lay their clothes at the feet of a young man named Saul, and he cries out, "Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Stephen's last words echo his Lord's, so this way of praying was in the church from the very beginning.
The second objection is heavier. If they did not know what they were doing, what is there to forgive? It seems you cannot need both an excuse and a pardon. Peter answers that question in public, in the same city, only weeks later. He is speaking to the very people who had asked for a murderer to be set free instead of Jesus, and he says, "I wot that through ignorance ye did it, as did also your rulers." "Wot" simply means know. He grants plainly that they did not understand. Then he goes on: "Repent ye therefore, and be converted, that your sins may be blotted out." Their not knowing was the reason mercy could still be offered, and the offer still had to be taken.
Lord Jesus, say it over us as well. We have stood in that crowd more often than we admit. We have done real harm while feeling completely sure of ourselves, and we have used not knowing as a way of never finding out. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do." Keep us from hearing those words as an excuse. Let them be the mercy that reaches us before we are asked to turn around, and give us grace to turn. Thank You that the pardon You prayed for from the cross is still being offered to us. Amen.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 289 is Every Hair Numbered (Luke 12:7).