Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

I commend to you this afternoon:  my colleagues.  Mark, Ann, Ryan, Brooke, and Neil:   for their expressions of faithfulness and for the gift of one more entry into an already too-busy calendar.  I commend them to you.

I commend each of you: for having given part of your afternoon to be still, to listen, not to us but to God’s voice within you.  Whether here for 30 minutes or for three hours, for the first time or the tenth, to bear witness to Christ and him crucified:  I commend you.

But what is that, exactly?  Commending?  According to a basic definition[1], to commend is ‘to represent as worthy, qualified or desirable’. 

And yes, that certainly fits, in both cases.  My friends and colleagues each have qualities that I certainly wish I did, elements of both character and spirit that more than qualify them in this role, on this afternoon or any. 

And certainly each of you, here to worship, seeking solace, needing comfort, deepened faith; is that not worthy and desirable?  Would that many more of our brothers and sisters in this community and around the world were ready, able, allowed to find such solace and faith.

Following that first definition, however, another is listed.  To commend is ‘to commit to the care of another, entrust.’  This understanding, perhaps, is more attuned to what Jesus was doing in this final Word from the cross.  This also, I believe, is what Jesus re-commends … suggests again … is the meaning for us.

Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

There’s a lot going on in this passage.  I realize that seeing it on paper, it doesn’t seem like much.  Each gospel writer tells the story in his own way.  The gospels have slight variances in people, timing, names, and each gospel writer clearly comes with a different audience in mind, a different purpose, a different focal point and message of Christ to commend to the community, then and now.

A mere three verses in the midst of a very busy and active Luke chapter 23:  The accusation … the bringing before Pilate … the option of releasing the thief Barabbas … the calls from the crowd to ‘Crucify! Crucify him!’ … Simon carrying the cross … the weeping of the daughters of Jerusalem … the mocking by the soldiers … the crucifixion between the criminals … the penitent thief and the promise of eternity in Paradise.  Quite a bit of action so far. 

Each gospel writer presents the story of Jesus’ death differently.  In Luke we are in the middle of the action.  We stand with the crowd.  And then in three small verses, something remarkable happens. 

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon

Darkness is a profound image in scripture.  When Isaiah, Jeremiah, Ezekiel, Micah talk about darkness, it is vivid and heavy and real.  It seems to me that it should always be dark on Good Friday, even in the middle of the day.  For the prophets, darkness is a sign of judgment, ‘the day of the Lord,’ that which comes on false prophets and rulers.  It is a sign in the heavens at the death of great men and kings.  And now, at about noon until 3 o’clock, darkness came over the whole land.

We know darkness – we know what it looks like, how it sounds, the feel and weight of it, the depth and extent of it.  In days when we have been damaged by, somehow survived, and yet still activate and support the machine of war … we know darkness.   In days when financial instability and fear have us turning more to protect our own than to see that everyone has what they need … we know darkness.  In days when fear and mistrust lurk in our neighborhoods, workplaces, and media outlets far more often than information, productivity or compassion … we know darkness.  This darkness … the darkness of abject fear, of desperate isolation, of deepest hopelessness … was so widespread, so far-reaching, of such cosmic significance, the gospel writer suggests it came over the whole land. 

Luke begins the story of Jesus’ life by identifying the time of the decree that ‘all the world should be registered’ (2:1).  Later, in Acts, Luke also suggests that the early Christians carried the gospel ‘to the ends of the earth’ (Acts 1:8).  As it was in the beginning, so it is at the end.  The darkness at the cross, on this day we call Good Friday, the darkness is just that big.  The darkness of the death of the one who came as Savior … the whole land would share that darkness.[2]

while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two.

“Sometime during the 7^th or 9^th century, St. Angus came to Balquidder, a beautiful valley surrounded by forested hills in the Scottish highlands.  Moved by its beauty, he said it was ‘a thin place’ – a place where the separation between heaven and earth was very thin – so he built a church there that has survived to this day.

The death of Jesus is ‘a thin place.’  Indeed, the heavens become dark, and on earth the veil in the Temple is {torn}.  So thin is the separation that Jesus talks to God from the cross, and those who hear his prayers are moved to confession and contrition. …”[3]

Earlier in Luke ( 21:25), Jesus himself says that the life of the Son of Man will be foretold by signs in the sun, the moon and the stars.  This pervasive darkness, this failing of the light of the sun itself, sets the scene for dramatic transformation.

In Temple architecture and design, there was a curtain, a veil.  This was more than aesthetic; it was not simply decorative.  The innermost sanctum, the most holy space of this entirely holy place, contained the Ark of the Covenant, where it was clearly understood and deeply held that God Himself had elected to reside.  The veil separated the Ark from the people, kept it ritually clean and pure.

Such purity concerns and divisions over ritual kept people in the early Christian churches separated from each other as well.  Those same concerns haunt us today … who’s in, or out … who’s included, or not … who’s allowed, or isn’t … who is invited, and won’t be … who may speak, act, behave, believe, and how … Such concerns and divisions still keep the people of God from BEING the people of God.

And yet it was – at least it should have been – the death of Christ on the cross that undid what Ephesians calls the ‘dividing wall of hostility’ (Eph 2:14-15).  In these very moments as Jesus died, the temple curtain is torn.  What once separated the people of God from the presence of God had been removed.  Now all may approach God equally and unafraid, knowing that the gospel of reconciliation and redemption is to be shared openly and with all.[4]

Then Jesus, crying out in a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.’ 
Having said this, he breathed his last.

In the gospel of Mark, the very same phrase is used, that just as Jesus ‘breathed his last,’ he did so offering a ‘loud cry.’  In Mark’s gospel, though, this cry is not articulated.  Luke is the one who gives it words.[5]  Quoting a Psalm (31:5), as we learned in many of the earlier Words, the ‘loud cry’ in Luke’s telling resonates as a consecration, a blessing of the very event itself:  Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.

To commend is ‘to commit to the care of another, entrust.’  Knowing that he had done all he could … knowing that he had taught, and healed, and led, and loved … Jesus knows that he has now finished his earthly ministry.  He meets this final moment “not in abandonment but in confidence,”[6] with a final statement of utter belief and praise of the One who has made him, and who will care for him from here.

“Perhaps it is good not to dispel the darkness of the death of Jesus too quickly.  We naturally move on to wonder at the love of God revealed in the death of Jesus … But part of the power of the gospel is that it calls us to tarry at the cross and then return home beating our breasts with those whose hopes seemed to have died there. … Jesus came ‘to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.’ (1.79) 

So those who see the light in the darkness can join those at the cross who confessed Jesus, beat their breasts in grief and contrition, and then went away to serve as witnesses that they had been at the ‘thin place’ where the design of the God of the heavens was revealed on earth.”[7]

In a day where we are all-too-familiar with the darkness that comes over the whole land … when we have been given – and yet often reject -- the gift of free and unrestricted relationship with God and with each other … what a profound model we have in Christ on the cross:  to completely hand over – with trust and commitment unrivaled – to hand over our spirits to the care of the one who first placed them within us.

May we be so faithful, so confident. 
May we step out of the pervasive darkness of our sin,
may we move forward into deeper relationship with God-in-Christ,
may we again this Good Friday dedicate ourselves to speaking of our faith. 
May our spirits be so commended.

Let us pray.
Merciful God, we are grateful.
We are grateful that you hear us, when we can put words to our cries, and when we cannot.
We are grateful that you continually rend the veil and invite us back into relationship with you.
We are grateful that even in our darkness, you are seeking to find us and will not rest until we are again in your light.
Be with us in these days, in our need and sorrow, in our ignorance and arrogance, in our fear and despair.  Remind us again and again that you are a God beyond our understanding, yet never beyond our reach.
Amen.