7 Words: Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit

The Seventh Word:
“Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit!”
(Luke 23:46)

Easter Sunday

(Luke 23:44-49) ⁴⁴ It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, ⁴⁵ for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. ⁴⁶ Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

⁴⁷ The centurion, seeing what had happened, praised God and said, “Surely this was a righteous man.” ⁴⁸ When all the people who had gathered to witness this sight saw what took place, they beat their breasts and went away. ⁴⁹ But all those who knew him, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

All week, we have been looking at Jesus’ words from the cross. We are reminded that while God had a plan all along, a plan of resurrection and glorification, this doesn’t mean Jesus had an easy time. Jesus suffered terribly. And at noon, even nature itself responded as Jesus died. Darkness came across the land as the sun stopped shining.

Even the Temple was affected, as the curtain separating the Holy of Holies from the rest of the Temple, was torn in two. And Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)

When I was planning out the program for the Easter Revival and chose the seven words of Jesus, I realized that I only had seven opportunities to preach. And I like to use a different text on Easter. The empty tomb. He is Risen! So I thought about maybe skipping one of the words of Jesus from the cross, but I couldn’t choose one to drop. It didn’t seem right to only preach on six of Jesus’ seven words. And I couldn’t combine two, because there simply isn’t enough time. So today, on Easter Sunday, we get Jesus’ last word from the cross.

There is something unique about this word. While Friday’s word: “It is finished!” was a word of victory, this word is pronounced victoriously. When someone is on the cross, their death is generally a torturously slow death of asphyxiation. They are unable to breathe. But Jesus summons enough strength to speak out in a loud voice. This isn’t a coincidence. Once again, Jesus prays from the Psalms. This time his prayer is from Psalm 31:5 Into your hands I commit my spirit; deliver me, Lord, my faithful God.

Jesus prays a prayer of trust and a prayer for rescue.

Sometimes we can get confused about terminology. In the US, when we talk about “spirit” we often think of a dualism: the body and the soul, two parts of one person. But the spirit, in Hebrew and Greek thought, comprised the person’s whole being. So the prayer is, as Eugene Peterson paraphrase in The Message: “I’ve put my life in your hands.”

Jesus trusts God with everything.

And things go dark. Darkness reigns over the earth for three hours. Satan laughs in victorious glee. Jesus is delivered to death, to the grave.

But that’s not the end of the story. You see, on the third day, Sunday, he rose again! Luke 24:1-8 tells the story: On the first day of the week, very early in the morning, the women took the spices they had prepared and went to the tomb. ² They found the stone rolled away from the tomb, ³ but when they entered, they did not find the body of the Lord Jesus. ⁴ While they were wondering about this, suddenly two men in clothes that gleamed like lightning stood beside them. ⁵ In their fright the women bowed down with their faces to the ground, but the men said to them, “Why do you look for the living among the dead? ⁶ He is not here; he has risen! Remember how he told you, while he was still with you in Galilee: ⁷ ‘The Son of Man must be delivered over to the hands of sinners, be crucified and on the third day be raised again.’ ” ⁸ Then they remembered his words.

When Jesus prayed in faith, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit,” he was acting in faith. Only God could save him. And we see that God did save him. God was faithful. It can be easy to only look at the cross from this side of history. We already knew how the story would unfold. We knew that Jesus would rise again. But we have the benefit of hindsight. Jesus was living in that moment, with faith that God would rescue him, but it hasn’t happened yet. It reminds me of the faith of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, facing the fiery furnace.

(Daniel 3:17-18) If we are thrown into the blazing furnace, the God we serve is able to deliver us from it, and he will deliver us from Your Majesty’s hand. ¹⁸ But even if he does not, we want you to know, Your Majesty, that we will not serve your gods or worship the image of gold you have set up.”

This is Jesus’ level of trust. He is facing death, he is facing abandonment, even by his Father. He is dehydrated and spiritually thirsty. He has taken the world’s sin upon his shoulders. Yet he doesn’t give up his faith. Instead, he gives himself fully to faith, saying, “Even though things are at their worst, I still trust God with everything.”

What I love about Jesus’ last words from the cross is that even as Jesus spoke them, so can we. Thankfully, most of us will never know what Jesus experienced, and we will never go through the depth of what he experienced. But because of Jesus, even when we are at our worst, in our deepest struggle, because his spirit lives and moves within us, we can pray this same prayer. When we come up against darkness that doesn’t quit, death that steals our life, we can choose to trust in God. To say, “Father I trust you with my life.”

There are times when our faith is misplaced. Some trust in money: the almighty kwacha or the almighty dollar. It seems like money makes things better. That is sometimes true, as long as your money serves you instead of the other way around. But the problem with money is it’s never enough. It never satisfies. Sometimes we trust in people, and they always let us down.

But our trust and faith in God is not misplaced. Jesus demonstrated whole-hearted faith and obedience on the cross, and his faith and obedience were rewarded. Indeed, today we celebrate because the cross is empty, and so is the tomb! Jesus is alive! God raised Jesus from the dead. We have the assurance that God is faithful.

In closing, I need to ask you: Have you put your life and, indeed, your life beyond this life, into God’s hands? Have you accepted that you cannot save yourself, that you are in need of a Savior? If not, it is time to pray the same prayer that Jesus prayed on the cross: Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.

If you have given your life to God through Jesus Christ, are you making a difference in the world? Are you allowing God to use you to be a blessing to someone else?