Friday, April 6, 2012

GOOD FRIDAY, APRIL 6, 2012--HOLY WEEK--EVENING MEDITATION


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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http://lectionary.library.vanderbilt.edu/