Did God answer Jesus' prayer?

This is a question with which I have been struggling a long time.  When in Luke's Gospel we hear Jesus on the cross praying to the Father, "Father, forgive them for they know not what they do," do you think the Father granted the Son's request? Do you think it was in the will of the Father for the Son to ask the question, and do you think that the Father was more than eager to comply?  How you come out on those questions has, I think, profound implications for what we think about God and the mission of the Church. 

You see, I think it was in the will of the Father for the Son to ask that question. In fact I wonder if the whole mission of Christ was leading to that very moment and that very prayer.  It had to come to that -- the profound blindness and ignorance of humanity strapping the Redeemer to the executioner's posts, humanity's ultimate rejection of God -- and in that very moment, the second person of the Trinity pleading within the Godhead for the Creator to reconcile himself to the fallen creation.  There was nothing anybody could do about it -- because we didn't have it inside ourselves to do it.  "Father, forgive them for they have no idea what they are doing!  Father, forgive them because they are clueless!  Father, forgive them because they just can't see and they are never going to get around to asking for it themselves."  God wills them reconciled.  God says "Yes" even when we say "No".

God is not captive to our human whim!  God is not beholden to our capriciousness.  God is not kept in the waiting room until we make up our minds!  To think so is to empty the cross of its power and love!  To think that God binds himself to the random events and experiences of human life that can turn us in our ignorance away from God, is to end up with a rather impotent God who has put human beings in control. 

I think it's the point that Paul gets around to when he writes, "God was in Christ reconciling the world to himself, no longer counting their sins against them, and entrusting to us the message of reconciliation."   The decisive victory has been won and what remains is announcing the good news.  Whether people believe it or not, does not affect the outcome.  Christ is risen and there is nothing any of us can do about it.  We are forgiven whether we like it or not. 

Karl Barth put it this way:  "I fear that much of the weakness of our Christian witness comes from this fact that we dare not frankly confess the grandeur of God, the victory of Christ, the superiority of the Spirit." 

Wow -- this is some news!  Something to believe in!  Something that gives you a reason to live!  Because if God did not grant the Son's request -- then I  .... well, I just don't want to go there.