Complete Surrender
Scripture: Luke 23:46
If we read earlier in this
passage, we know that symbols of this death were all around before Jesus spoke
his last words. Darkness fell over the whole land. The sun literally stopped
shinning in disapproval. Many signs of God’s presence in creation were gone. It
was a shattering moment— a moment that people of faith or no faith at all were
forced to recognize. Everything was changing. Everything had changed with those
last breaths of the One who was called God with Us.
Yet, if you have sat beside
anyone as they lie dying, you know that the last of the last words are always
hauntingly important. They are the words that stick with us, that we hear
played in our heads over and over after a loved one has passed. We recite these
words to others. We often remember them more than anything else the dying
person had said previously.
So let us remember this: when
Jesus uttered his last, we hear in this utterance an acceptance of his death.
What we hear is not a combative last wish, or an “I wish I’d done more of this”
or “Why really do I have to die this way?” Or, “Why aren’t there more people
here mourning my death?” But, an, “I accept the fact that even though this all
is so painful and uncertain- I WILL leave this earth in acknowledgement of my
Father God.” “Father, into your hands, I
commit my spirit.”
Even more so, what we hear in
these words is a TRUST in the Father to handle what he could not—the outcome.
In his last words, Jesus showed a surrender beyond what his human body could
feel. Jesus showed a surrender beyond what his human mind could reason. He was
able to let go of human life and what many would call his hour of defeat
without trying to change anything. He was about his Father's business.
Prayer: So, in the
darkness of the night as we sit to wait for the light to come, let us trust God
too as we say: ‘Into your hands I commit my spirit.” AMEN.
The Reverend Elizabeth Hagan
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