What are the 7 Last Words of Christ?

Today is Good Friday.... In case any of you didn't know what's Good Friday, it is the day when Chirst died on the cross some almost 2000 years ago. And 3 days later on Easter Sunday, he rose from the dead and came back to life. Ya, thursday night was the night of the famous Last Supper and the trial la....

Last year, there were 2 movies about Jesus Christ during this period, "Gospel of John" and "Passion of the Christ". But this year there's none. So I just take this opportunity here to share with you guys the 7 Last Words of Christ. 7 is the complete/perfect number in Jews tradition.

The following are copied from a book, so you all just read la, any typo please 體諒.

The New Testament records that Jesus spoke seven times while he was dying on the cross. These utterances, culled from the Gospel accounts of the Cruxification, have been formally ordered into a sequence known as the Seven Last Words, pasrtly as an attempt to harmonize the internal chronology of the Passion narractives. Still used in liturgical worship during the commemoration of the Christ's death on Good Friday, the Seven Last Words have also inspired numerous musical arrnagements, including those of Franz Joseph Haydyn and the nineteenth-century Italian composer Saverio Mercadante.

"Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do" (Luke 23:34)

Theologians have interpreted this verse --- which does not appear in the most ancient manuscripts --- to mean that Jesus may have sought to protect his tormentors from God's wrath as he was being nailed to the cross at Golgotha (the "Place of the Skull," Latinized as Calvary). Forgiveness is emphasized throughout the New Testament. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus instructed his hearers to love their enemies and those who persecute them.

But whom does Jesus ask God to forgive --- the Roman soldiers who crucified him? The Jewish Sanhedrin? The mob that demanded his crucifixion? Lily-livered Pontius Pilate? Certainly not Judas, who knew exactly what he was doing. In any event, Christ's plea for forgiveness specifically cites the lack of knowledge of those who sought his death --- the implication being they did not know he was the Messiah and were thus unaware of the enormity of their crime. Indeed, in the following verses, the leaders of the people sneer at Christ, saying "let him save himself if he is the chosen one, the Messiah of God." Luke records that "even the soldiers jeered at him."

"Verily I say unto thee, Today shalt thou be with me in paradise" (Luke 23:43)

Forgiveness also figures in the second utterance from the cross, directed at the Good Thief (whom later legend named Dysmas), one of the two criminals crucified on either side of Christ. When the unrepentant criminal reviles Jesus as a false Messiah unable to save himself and his two companions in agony, the other rebukes him and says to Christ, "Lord, remember me when thou comest into thy kingdom." Jesus reponds to this remarkable display of faith by promising him eternal salvation, despite his deeds. In contrast, shortly before this exchange, Peter, leader of the Apostles and recently designated by Jesus as head of the nascent Church had denied his association with him three times.

"Woman, behold thy son!" and "Behold thy mother!" (John 19:26-27)

On the face of it, Jesus merely exercised his duty as a good Hebrew son in attending to the future well-being of his widowed mother by these utterances directed respectively at Mary and "the disciple whom he loved," apparently the Apostle John. Yet the term of address Christ used while establishing a family bond between the two, "woman," seems oddly distanced.

The Chruch Fathers later allegorized this exchange, reported only in John's Gospel, by contrasting the first woman, Eve ("the mother of all the living" whose disobedience toward the divine plan in Eden resulted in sin, death and the need for Christ's redemptive mission), with Mary, the perfect woman, the mother of the Savior who remained fully obedient to God's plan from the moment she replied to the angel Gabriel's annunciation, "Behold the handmaid of the Lord; be it don unto me according to thy word" (Luke 1:38). Mary, the second Eve, was thus seend as having borne the new Adam the perfect man. Together, they repaired the cosmic damage wrought by their predecessors. Thus the Church Fathers.

But on several occasions in the Gospels themselves, Christ emphasized the importance of his God-appointed mission over the nee to defer to Mary and other family members. At age twelve, when he accompanied his mother and his foster father, Joseph, to Jerusalem to observe Passover, he stayed behind after their departure in order to converse with some doctors of the Law in the Temple (Luke 2:41-52). After Mary and Joseph, who both thought he was with the caravan, became aware he was missing, they rushed back to the city, full of grief and anxiety. When they found him, Mary asked why he had done this to them adn told him how much they had worried. "Why were you looking for me?" he replied. "Did you not know that I must be about my Father's work" (or "in my Father's house")?

In his first miracle, when he turned water into wine at the wedding at Cana, Jesus had been asked to perform the deed by Mary as a kindness to the celebrants (John 2:1-11). "They have no wine," she says to her son when th esupply is running short. He answers sharply, "Woman, how does your concern affect me? My hour has not yet come." Again the word woman and the reference to a higher calling. Yet he accedes to his mother's will.

In Luke 8:19-21, when told his mother and brothers are waiting to see him but can't approach because of the crowd, Christ replied, "My mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and act on it."

"Eloi,Eloi, lama sabachtani?" ("My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?) (Mark 15:34)

When Christ uttered these words (recorded by Mark in Aramaic, the spoken language of the Jews after their Babylonian exile), nature itself was said to be shrouded in gloom as the result of a three-hour eclipse of the sun. Some onlookers mistakenly thought Jesus was calling on the prophet Elijah, whom many Jews believed would return to earth just before the coming of the Messiah. In Matthew's version (27:46), the Hebrew for God, "Eli," is substituted, as being closer to Elijah's name.

In this lament, Christ was echoing Psalm 222, which begins with this cry of sad confusion over God's abandonment of a faithful servant. Some have questioned whether Christ succumbed to despair when he accused the Father of forsaking him. This would, of course, strike at the heart of Christian belief in Jesus as both God and man.

Psalm 22, however, begins with the suffering of a just man but goes on to assert that God "has not scorned the downtrodden, nor shrunk in loathing from his plight, nor hiddenhis face from him, but have heed to him when he cried out." According to Christian thought, the human and divine natured of Jesus each had come to the fore during his agony in the Garden of Gethsemane. Before going off to pray, he tells Peter, James and John, "My soul is sorrowful even to death." He then prays, "My Father, if it is possible, let this cup [his imminent death on the cross] pass from me." Immediately afterward, however, he adds, "yet, not as I will, but as you will" (Matthew 26:36-46).

"I thirst" (John 19:19:28)

Later used as ab affirmation of Christ's humanity against attackes from Docetists (heretics who denied he was truly man), these words also illustrates the fortitude of Jesus, who suffered hours of torture before expressing a physical need. A sponge soaked in sour wine (or vinegar) is raised to his lips, and he drinks before he dies. Once again, Psalm 22 (verse16) figures in the background of this detail: "Mythroats is dried up like baked clay, my tongue cleaves to my jaws," as well as Psalm 69 (verse 21): "They ... gave me vinegar when I was thirsty."

"It is finished" (John 19:30)

These are Christ's words immediately after he drinks. The original Greek, the single word tetelestai, is related to the noun telos ("goal, end, purpose") and has given us our word teleology. Christ is not actually saying his life is finished (though it is) but that his mission of redemption --- of dying for man's sins to effect his atonement with God --- has been accomplished.

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke 23:46)

Christ again alludes to the Psalms in his final utterance as recorded by Luke. This time it is Psalm 31 (verse 4-5): "Pull me out of the net they have spread for me, for you are my refuge; into your hands I commit my spirit." Luke's Greek term translated as "spirit" is pneuma, "the breath of life, the soul," which Jesus here redirects to the divine fount of all life.

According to Christian belief, Christ rose fomr the dead on the thrid day, Easter Sunday, and then ascended into heaven, body and soul, after spending forty days with his followers, giving them their final instructions (Matthew 28:19-20): "Go, therefore, make disciples of all the nations ... and teach them to observe all the commands I gave you. And know that I am with you always; yes to the end of time."

Hope you all find the above interesting!!! haha. Just another interesting thing to share.... Cos Jesus was put on the cross from 9am and finally died at 3pm, and at the time he passed away, there's thunder and the whole sky went dark and so on.... So there's a myth saying that every year's Good Friday at 3pm, the sky will be covered by dark clouds, never sunny etc.... I personally dun believe in it, cos it's too superstitious, but find it quite interesting, so those who interested to find out whether it's true or not, can go and check it out at 3pm later.....

Finally, to end this, i hope more people sort of understand what Good Friday and Easter Day is about rather than just taking it as another long weekend and public holiday to relax.