by Mark Briley

 

 

It’s tough to be at the end of things.  The end can come unexpectedly…a whirlwind of activity

that can cause a panic when all control seems lost.  The end can also come with dignity, with foreknowledge, with time to consider what the end means.  I’ve occasionally pondered what the end might be like for me…the end in this case being my earthly life.  Will it happen quickly?  Without pain?  Will I be old?  Will I be young?  Will I have time to say goodbye to those I love?  I don’t dwell on these matters but I’ll admit to thinking about them now and again.

 

I came across a website recently that has logged the last words of some historical figures.  It was interesting to read their final words when the “end” came for them.  Allow me to share a few with you…

 

“Now comes the mystery…”  These were the last words of Henry Ward Beecher, a fervent abolitionist and one of the most influential American clergymen in the 1800’s.

 

“I don’t know.”  The words of Peter Abelard, a philosopher known for always having the answers.

 

When hotel tycoon Conrad Hilton was on his deathbed, he was asked if he had any parting words of wisdom for the world.  He replied just before his death, “Leave the shower curtain on the inside of the tub.”  

 

Karl Marx, most known for producing the theory of modern socialism and communism scoffed when asked if he had any last words.  He did offer a response before his final breath:  “Last words are for fools who haven’t said enough.”[1] 

 

In this moment, we find ourselves at the end.  It is the end of Jesus the human.  For the past two and a half hours we have heard of Jesus’ last words from the cross but we have now come to the end.  I wonder if Jesus imagined his last words being recorded as treasured scripture or if he assumed it a private moment between him and his Heavenly Father.  “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

 

Were it intended for public display, Jesus carried out to the end his scheme to raise havoc with the people.  Another attempt at mockery some might suggest.  The movies dramatize the last words of criminals.  Jesus was dying as such.  There is the big moment in the electric chair where the heartless curse and spit on the world that has turned on them completely to the point of being deemed unworthy of living.  Psychopathic killers maintain a sick demeanor and the demons of their mind still seem to hold them captive.  At least this is what you see in the movies.  I don’t think Jesus was playing to an audience, however. 

 

More often than not, death serves as a sort of truth serum.  When you reach the end, the point of no return, you have nothing to lose.  You might as well speak the truth as you know it…it is your last chance.  Perhaps you don’t even think about what it is you will say.  It is not planned or rehearsed…it is what your soul longs to say before it gives up the ghost.  In Jesus’ last moment of humanity, I think his soul was speaking.  “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  It was all he had left to offer.  His body was broken…his blood shed.  His emotions were expended.  His breathing was labored.  He had offered himself completely to God on behalf of those who hated him most.  And then in a moment intended for God alone, he offers the rest of himself…his spirit. It is a salvific moment that brought darkness over the earth.  God is dead.

 

Eugene Peterson, best known for his translation of scripture into modern English language, has also written a number of other books about Christian faith.  One of his books, Under the Predictable Plant, speaks of this cosmic moment of salvation come into being on the cross.  Listen to his words:  “Salvation, God’s will for every creature to experience the love that redeems, is not a casual or cool abstraction; it is a wild and extravagant energy, not reducible to human control, not to be harnessed to the service of a religious job. The storm is all-encompassing and unmanageable. As such it provides the contextual analogue for the unleashed spirit/wind of God. Storm is the environment in which we either lose our lives or are saved; there is no cool, safe ledge on which to perch as spectators. There are no bleachers from which to enjoy the lightning and thunder, the waves and breakers of the storm. We are in it, prophet and people, sailors and saints. Nothing else matters at this point; it is life or death. Whatever else has been on the agenda is on it no longer. There is this single item: salvation — or not.”[2]

Here we are at this moment again.  We come to the end and nothing else really matters does it?  It is cliché and I’m sure you’ve heard it a million times:  “When death comes, no one is ever thinking they wish they would have spent more time at work.”  You don’t worry about your to-do lists any more…they are irrelevant.  The laundry left undone is the least of your concerns.  Your loved ones certainly cross your mind.  My image of death has changed since becoming a father.  I can tear up even thinking of the possibility of not seeing my daughter grow into the woman God will help her become.  Jesus may have experienced this too.  Some of the gospels put his mother Mary at the cross with him.  Leaving Mom behind alone, as we assume Joseph has died years ago, would have been hard.  But in the end, in a closing moment of life, it does seem to come down to this single item between you and your maker:  salvation – or not. 

 

It is the moment of self-realization.  It is like strapping into the rollercoaster car and the chain link gadget propels you up the first tall hill.  You are in it and you are not getting out of it until the ride is over.  Whether by choice or not, you are in this world…you are strapped into life and you are not getting out of it until it is over.  So, each of us faces the ultimate question of humanity that Jesus faced in a moment:  What is beyond this life?  Is there a place for me outside of the only realm I have ever known?  Salvation or not?

 

I think Jesus answers this question with his final words from the cross.  “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”  There is no sign of “not” in this phrase.  I imagine no questioning in his voice.  He’s in.  When the end came, he wasn’t thinking of the carpentry shop or how his closest friends betrayed him.  It was he and God.  It was salvation.  It was redemption.  It was freedom. 

 

It may be that our final earthly moments are a reflection of the rest of the moments that we have already lived.  Jesus had always offered freely his Spirit into God’s hands.  Even in his Gethsemane prayer where some question his commitment to carrying the cross to his death, he ends with “not my will but yours be done.”  The same concept permeates that moment.  It makes me think about my living.  If the end of my life would be today, have I lived a life to the best of my ability?  Was I a giver or a taker?  Did I encourage others or did I demean them?  Did I live out God’s plan for my life?  Did my family know how much I loved them?  Had I trusted my spirit into God’s hands?  When you become at peace with your living, you become at peace with your mortality.  It doesn’t mean you long to die or you wish it would happen soon.  Instead it means you are living a life of salvation.  You are loving people.  You are faithful to carry out your place in the world.  You are putting your life into God’s hands.  So, when that time comes for you, which research still shows that death in humans still hovers at 100%, you might commend your spirit to the one who will open new doors for you in eternity without any regret. 

 

I had a basketball coach who always said, “When the buzzer sounds at the end of the game, make sure you left it all out on the floor.”  Play with no regrets.  You only get one chance.  Don’t leave the court; don’t leave this life, without giving it your best.  Jesus fulfilled his mission on earth.  He was faithful to his calling.  He loved beyond measure.  He became salvation even as he experienced it for himself in this dying moment.  And so, he offers all he has left to his Father in Heaven. 

 

I want to die like that.  In the most undignified moment of his life…hanging on a cross, bruised, battered, and bleeding…barely clothed, being mocked, guards gambling for his clothes before he had even passed…He died with no regrets.  He died as he lived…with grace, and hope, and trust.  He lived for the sake of humanity and he died for the sake of humanity.  A person never identified shared some wisdom in something I read this week.  He or she said, “What we do for ourselves dies with us.  What we do for others and the world remains and is immortal.”  This ending moment on the cross is salvation lived out in the flesh. 

 

My hope is that I still have some time left.    Selfishly, I would like to live quite a while actually.  I want to see Morgan grow up.  I want to grow old with the woman I fell in love with as a teenager.  I want to see things I have yet to see.  I want to do things I have yet to do.  I want to fulfill the purpose God has intended for me.  I’m not ready for you to record my final words at this point.  However, when the end comes for me, I pray that I go with grace.  I pray that I go without any regrets.  I pray that I will have lived a God-honoring life…that I will have loved the best I knew how.  I pray that I will have left it all on the court so when God calls me home, I have nothing left to give but my soul.  And, like Jesus, that I might share the same parting words, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”

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