Good Friday
Seventh Word
I’m going to begin a prayer
and you help me finish the first couple lines
Our
Father, who art…
The
Lord is my shepherd…
Now
I lay me down to sleep…
Most
of us do not remember learning these words. They stir up from out minds almost
automatically. The words feel like a part of us and they slide out of our mouths
as easily as breath.
“Into
thy hands, I commit my spirit” was a child’s bedtime prayer in the time of
Jesus. It is likely that Mary would sit down next to a young Yeshua, settling
down for sleep on his bed of rushes in the family room. They might have sung a
soft song or recited the Sh’ma (Hear O
Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one). She might have spoken a soft
prayer or blessing over him. Then she would have reminded him of the last
prayer of the night. The last words for each child (and adult to speak) before
falling asleep were a quotation of Psalm 31:5, “Into your hands, I commit my spirit.”
These
words, believed to be of David- shepherd boy and powerful King- were the last
prayer of the night, the prayer of trust and expressed hope before surrendering
to the oblivion of sleep, which must have seemed like a kind of death. Praying
as the psalmist gave parents a way to teach their children about trusting in
God- a Creator and Redeemer who was with them in a way that even their own
parents could not be.
Thus,
young Jesus would have uttered this prayer every day of his life. He would
likely never remember having learned it. He might remember his mother helping
him pray it. Or remember hearing Joseph whisper it at the end of a day’s
labors. Jesus might have prayed it in the night with other children in his
family- as they piled in together for sleep, exhausted after play, worship, and
work.
When
Jesus prays this from the cross, he is no longer a child. He no longer retained
the innocence of one who has not seen evil. He had been betrayed, denied,
rejected, beaten, and crucified. His humanity had been stretched to its
breaking point and that same humanness was about to experience the end of
earthly human experience- death. Yet, in this moment, he is still the Son,
still God’s anointed, still Emmanuel- God with us. Even as he experiences, he
teaches. Even as he teaches, he saves. Even as he saves, he transforms.
Jesus
utters this prayer, “Into thy hands, I commit my spirit” and transforms it for
his own self on the cross and for all who would pray it after him. By adding
the word “Father”, Jesus reveals his nature as the pioneer of our faith-
leading us into a new kind of intimacy and familial relationship with God, with
himself, and with one another. Jesus prays the words just as he has thousands
of times, but this time, we are able to hear that he is not David. He is not just another
claimant to the title of Messiah. He is not a failed political revolutionary.
He is not a rejected king.
Only
one who knows the heart of God would dare to address the Ground of All Being as
“Father”. The only one would could
truly know the heart of the Holy Parent is one who was of that heart, was of
the same being, understood the same things, and had the same desires since
before the beginning of creation. Only the Living Word would dare to pray with
such familiarity and deep trust, trust that came not of hope, but out of
knowledge.
Only
Jesus would pray a children’s bedtime prayer in the moment of his death to
teach all who hear and all who follow how to live and how to die with true
faith- born out of concrete expectation in God’s faithfulness.
Every
prayer of Jesus is a model for us, a way to pray- as children of faith, as children
of light, as children of adoption by the Holy Spirit. In his last words, Jesus
teaches us how to pray in the hour of death. Since most of us do not know that
hour, we are therefore empowered to pray in this way every day of our lives,
every moment of our lives. When driving, before sleeping, in choosing a daily
intention, in our hobbies, in our relationship, we can and should ask God to
shape our will, our actions, and our prayers to God’s own will, actions, and
plans. We do this in the imitation of Christ’s last words, in letting this be
the prayer we know by heart, “Father, into thy hands, I commit my spirit.”
Amen.
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