Lent Reflection, Good Friday

Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last.
Luke 23:46

Additional Reading: John 15:9-17

The last words of a dying man.

But wait. There’s something else here, easy to overlook, a hidden wonder. With Hebrew ears we listen in on the rasping voice of this dying man. And we hear, “Father, daddy, into your hands, here is my life, my ruah, my breath.” And he breathed it out. And that was it.

In the beginning, God breathed into humanity and there was life. In Ezekiel’s valley of dry bones, the breath fills the bones and makes them live. And after the resurrection, Jesus tells his disciples to wait in Jerusalem until the Spirit, the “wind,” comes. The breath of God. The very life of the Almighty that would fill those who follow him. The power of every sermon he preached, every parable, every word of healing and friendship, the very substance of the life he lived is in this breath. And here, in this greatest act of love and obedience, he surrenders that breath.

Imagine! This is God, come to tell of everlasting life, the life we should have, could have. So he lives that life in front of all. And then, he gives it up. He dies.

We’ve heard of special endings before. Enoch walked with God and then he was no more. God just says, “You’re so close, why not just come on over to this side.” Moses, who had seen him face to face, died at the Lord’s command, and was buried in a hidden place, hidden away with the Lord. Elijah is caught up into the air in grand, fiery display. But this … this is different altogether.

“This is my beloved son, in whom I am well pleased.” This is the intimate exchange between the Father and the Son, the most holy and heartbreaking. For all the times he had tried to explain his relationship to the Father: “I and the Father are one … I can do only what I see the Father doing … Did you know that I must be in my Father’s house?” This is how close he is to the Father in heaven. As close as his breath.

Prayer: Kind Father, I am humbled in the presence of this. I want to hold the dying body of Jesus, his fragile form slumped in my arms – to draw his face close to mine in this last groaning, feel this final breath on my face, and with him breathe the prayer: “Into your hands I commit my life.” Amen.