hidden image

Bob’s Banter by Robert Clements For He Knows What They Do..!

Robert Clements Robert Clements
03 Apr 2023
And I hear Christ above, still turning to His Father and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing!”

And as we approach Good Friday, I see Jesus on the cross, and with a sad face He hears the sounds of the howling mob, braying for His blood. He had heard them earlier in Pilate’s courtyard as they had shouted, “Crucify him! Crucify him!”

Jesus must have looked into the mob and seen the very ones who had attended His sermon on the mount. He must have seen many He had healed, or relatives of those He had given sight to, or had helped walk again, and maybe raise from the dead!

His eyes must have been sad.

But He knew they were not at fault.

He knew they had been instigated by those in power, cunningly and cleverly, and knowing this He cried out to God in Heaven, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do!”

Two thousand years have passed, and today as I look at scenes in my own country, of Christ’s own followers being persecuted, with churches broken, false cases thrust on innocent priests, and laws passed to stop His followers from talking about Christ, I feel like crying out the same words, “Father forgive them for they know not what they do!”

Yes, these are the same ones who went to the best school started by Christian missionaries. Yes, many of them were treated in the best hospitals quite often at no cost. Yes, many of them poor and poverty stricken were fed and clothed, but now they are part of the mob!

And I hear Christ above, still turning to His Father and saying, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they are doing!”

So, who is it who knows what is being done?

And I go back in time to the high priests and pharisees, who plotted to kill Jesus, and who cunningly used the mob, and here two thousand years later, it is the same; many who sit in authority, who instigate and misinform the millions of illiterate and uneducated in our country.

They know how easy it is to feed people with untruths of ‘forced conversion’ and that foreign powers are trying to grab our country through their foreign God, and the poor and uneducated believe and become their army to destroy, demolish, and desecrate.

Even as the mob is not to blame, a God above looks down, and sees those behind that mob!

My column for this week was another, a political satire, till I felt this overpowering feeling this morning, making me pen this piece, one in which I humbly warn those that instigate the mob, that a God above sees the suffering, notices the destruction, watches the false cases, hears the cries for help, and knows, oh yes, He Knows What You Do, even as He stretches out His hands like that Good Friday long ago embracing all who suffer for Him..!  

bobsbanter@gmail.com

Recent Posts

The battle over cattle is no longer merely about faith or food. It is about whether farmers can survive, whether livestock retains economic value and whether symbolism can coexist with the hard realit
apicture A. J. Philip
08 Jun 2026
The real national emergency is not religion or identity but the betrayal of India's youth. While governments chase votes through division and spectacle, millions of young Indians confront unemployment
apicture Jacob Peenikaparambil
08 Jun 2026
At the Red Fort, Amit Shah transformed a so-called cultural gathering into a declaration of intent: tribal identity belongs within the Hindu fold. For two crore Adivasi Christians, the rally signalled
apicture John Dayal
08 Jun 2026
The controversy surrounding ILBS goes beyond one tragic death. It raises concerns about the VIP culture, commercialisation, unequal access and institutional accountability in a public healthcare syste
apicture Joseph Maliakan
08 Jun 2026
The 1851 novel by one of the best English novelists of all time, Charles Dickens, levelling a poignant critique of industrialisation and utilitarianism in England, attempted to present the dehumanisin
apicture Julian S Das
08 Jun 2026
The sun rises But does not touch us first. Roosters in the non-Dalit yards Crow before we are allowed To open our doors.
apicture Dr Suryaraju Mattimalla
08 Jun 2026
Marco Rubio had a tough time in India trying to respond to questions about Donald Trump's "hellholes" remark regarding India and China. Did Rubio describe the statement as "stupid," or was he referrin
apicture Thomas Menamparampil
08 Jun 2026
The white-bearded village chief and his bald-headed deputy stood at the edge of the village where nobody would overhear them. They had chosen the spot carefully because of Pegasus, the invisible flyin
apicture Robert Clements
08 Jun 2026
It is not surprising that India has been lukewarm to Pope Leo XIV's Encyclical on Artificial Intelligence. The Pope has warned that Artificial Intelligence threatens to normalise an "anti-human vision
apicture John Dayal
01 Jun 2026
What began as a "special revision" of electoral rolls has evolved into something far more unsettling: a test of who truly belongs in the Republic. By upholding the Election Commission's powers while o
apicture A. J. Philip
01 Jun 2026