Luke 23:46
Good Friday English Service, CCU, Cumberland Presbyterian Church, April 2, 1999, 7:30 PM
Learning to trust someone begins at birth when the umbilical cord is cut and we begin to rely on others to eat. We discover that we can trust the hands and arms reaching out to us when we take those very first steps. And when we are left for the first time in the church’s nursery crying for awhile, our trust grows when our mothers and fathers do return to claim us. Our trusting in others becomes more complicated when we get into covenants and contracts. We make promises that we hope to keep. We trust that the other side will be faithful to come through for us.
At the end of Jesus’ earthly life, he was in no condition to wonder who he can trust while hanging on the cross. His followers betrayed, denied, and abandoned him. The religious leaders accused him of blasphemy. And one would hope that the civil authorities, the law enforcement in those days would have come in to break up the commotion. No, even they wash their hands of this incident. The women with no political power stood nearby and mourned. Jesus had no one to trust anymore. He was alone on the cross and the only one he can turn to, the one who has been there for him from birth, is God. God had not forsaken Jesus.
The cry of Jesus is a prayer of trust in God and the committing of his spirit into God’s care. There is nothing here of anger or doubt or thrashing about in the wake of death. He said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” With serenity, acceptance, and trust, Jesus died sometime in the afternoon of the day before the Sabbath, which was Passover.
When Jesus entrusted his spirit and breath to God, he reconnected his divine umbilical cord with his Father God. When Jesus was placed in the tomb for those three days, the disciples and women cried like nursery school children when their parents were late in picking them up. We wonder if we can trust Jesus anymore when all of this has happened. But when Jesus began reappearing in the presence of his disciples, he was reaching out with his pierced hands and arms to his disciples and followers to not be dismayed but to become a Christian community. They were learning to walk on their own.
And for the last two thousand years, Jesus Christ continues reaching out with his hands and arms to us so that we can trust God and learn how to walk with him. Each of us has taken our first steps to walk with Christ in our lives. When we come to the end of our lives having joyously labored for the Lord, may we trust God by saying, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” As it was with the disciples, let us together as a
Spirit-alive Christian community in San Francisco, walk together with the passion of Jesus Christ in our hearts to proclaim the Good News in the world. Amen.