(Luke 23:33–43)
In Canberra, in the week of the17th of November 2025, a boy was sitting on a bus.
Innocent.
Suddenly he was violently apprehended by ACT police on suspicion of committing a violent crime. He pleaded his innocence as they dragged him off the bus and throw him on the ground, forcing their knees in to his back.
Innocent.
Now he won’t leave his room.
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They came
to the place called **The Skull**,
a place heavy with stories,
a place where the land remembers.
There
they crucified him —
Jesus,
the innocent one,
hanging between two others
counted as worthless
by the empire that feared him.
And when we hear this story,
we do not hear a tale from long ago.
We hear
the trembling echo of our own Country,
where the powerful once used violence
to silence truth,
to crush innocence,
to erase identity,
to scatter families
to the winds of empire.
For Aboriginal people,
The Skull
is not found only in Scripture.
It lives in frontier dust,
in mission walls,
in reserve fences,
in prison yards.
It is the ground
where ancestors fell,
and yet
where ancestors still stand
in spirit.
And so—
when we hear this story
we listen side-by-side
with those who were taken,
those who resisted,
those who carried culture like flame
kept alive under ash.
We stand with them
as they stand with Jesus.
The Place of the Skull
The Gospel says:
“They crucified him there.”
But place is never just place.
Country is never empty.
It keeps memory,
it carries story,
it whispers truth beneath the soil.
And Country knows
what happened upon it.
Golgotha becomes
every site
where innocent blood seeped
into thirsty ground,
every site
where harm tried to sever
the bond between people and land.
And still —
the land remembers.
The land holds truth.
The land refuses silence.
Jesus walks into that story
willingly,
carrying a truth empire cannot kill.
Aboriginal people know this story well:
the truth that endures,
even when the coloniser
tries to forget.
“Father, forgive them…”
He speaks.
His voice cracked.
His breath thin:
“Father, forgive them;
for they do not know
what they are doing.”
Forgiveness—
a word often thrown
toward Aboriginal people
like a demand,
a burden,
a shortcut through pain
without listening,
without truth,
without justice.
But forgiveness in our way
is slow,
heavy,
rooted,
a returning to right relationship,
a restoring of balance,
a journey walked with honesty.
Jesus does not excuse the empire.
He names its blindness.
He exposes its inability to see
the sacred life before it.
And his question hangs in the air:
Did they truly not know?
Or did they simply refuse to see?
Aboriginal people
carry that question daily.
And Jesus’ words remind us:
healing begins
when eyes finally open.
The Mocking
The leaders laugh.
The soldiers sneer.
The crowd watches —
silently,
safely,
from a distance.
“Prove who you are,”
they taunt.
“Show us your power.”
Aboriginal people
know this voice.
The voice of doubt.
Dismissal.
Contempt.
“Prove you’re Aboriginal.”
“Your culture is primitive.”
“Your identity is political.”
“Why can’t you save yourselves?”
Jesus stands
where our people have stood —
stripped,
denied,
mocked,
misunderstood.
Yet he remains
who he is.
Even here,
his spirit does not break.
Even here,
he holds truth.
The Two Beside Him
One cries out in desperation:
“Save yourself — and us.”
But the other—
the one the world forgot,
the one counted among the disposable—
sees clearly:
“This man has done nothing wrong.”
He speaks truth
in a place ruled by lies.
And then he whispers:
“Jesus, remember me.”
To be remembered
is to belong.
To be remembered
is to live.
And Jesus replies:
“Today you will be with me
in Paradise.”
This is not escape.
It is return—
to balance,
to peace,
to Country,
to Spirit.
Jesus with the Oppressed
We do not see Jesus
on the side of the empire.
We see him:
with the poor,
the imprisoned,
the mocked,
the colonised,
the truth-tellers punished
for their courage.
The cross
is where empire uncloaks itself.
But the cross
is also where love
refuses
to die.
A Call to the Church
Do not rush reconciliation.
Do not demand forgiveness without truth.
Do not silence the wounded.
Do not turn away
from those being crucified
by unjust systems.
Stand where Jesus stands:
with the ones on the margins.
Be like the second man —
the one who sees,
the one who speaks,
the one who asks
to belong
in right relationship.
The Hope of Remembering
“Remember me,” he said.
“Today you will be with me,”
Jesus replied.
Remembering
is sacred.
It binds past to present,
earth to spirit,
ancestor to child.
Jesus remembers us
with that same deep remembering —
restoring,
healing,
holding,
guiding.
In a land where truth was buried,
Jesus uncovers it.
In a nation built on forgetting,
Jesus remembers.
In a history marked by crucifixions
of our people,
Jesus walks beside us still.
The Crucified One stands with us.
The Risen One walks with us.
Always.
Amen.