The Ven. Richard I. Cluett
I want to think with you for a few minutes about this event from Jesus’ perspective, as well as our own. How did he allow this to happen? Why? How could he just give himself over to this? How could he just give away his own power over his life, his survival, to God, to Pilate, to pain, and finally to death itself?
Well, truth be told, looking at the entire context and content of his life, Jesus is not doing a new thing here. This is not new behavior, not a new practice, he’s not trying a different approach, this is not a new direction for his life. When Jesus says, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit”, he was not saying anything or doing anything different from what he had done his entire ministry. “Father, I put myself in your hands. Father, not my will but yours be done." In essence, his entire ministry is putting himself at God’s disposal. (Disposal, now there’s a word with multiple meanings.)
But it is true to form for Jesus at this time to do that. He has run the race. He has practiced what he preached. He has walked the talk. All those platitudes have been made real, been given life and flesh and now blood; they have been lived out. And the final ultimate giving over to God is being accomplished on the cross.
Many of us spend much of our lives trying to maintain control of our lives, attempting to wrest control of our lives from others – from parents, from employers, from the media, from the government, from our need to consume, from our addictions, from the powers that control our behavior, and even to wrest control over ourselves from the God who created us in that divine image.
From our earliest days we are taught to make our own decisions, to be responsible for ourselves, to chart our own course, to control our own destinies. For boys, John Wayne used to be the swaggering model that would tell the world we are in charge of ourselves. Now, for many young men it is the swagger of the hiphop gang, who “don’t take no lip, no dissin’ from nobody.”
“Grow up! Be a mensch, be a man!” Or for women, “I am woman. Hear me roar!” Or a child shouting back at an older sibling, “You’re not the boss a’ me!”
We are reluctant to give ourselves over into the hands of any other person, being, entity, or power.
But Jesus wasn’t. He may have been fearfully afraid of what was happening to him, but he wasn’t reluctant.
Both the prophets of old and the author of the Book of Hebrews wrote, “It is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God.” Jesus didn’t think so. He knew to whom he was ultimately giving himself, God the father, who created him, and who loved him, and who gave his life purpose and meaning, and who would keep him for ever and ever. So he said, Amen to it, amen to it all.
What do you think? What is your experience of this matter of who can control what? What does your experience tell you about you?
There have been moments when I have given some situation or myself into the hands of God – almost always as a last resort, often with a sense of frustration. “God I have tried and tried, it’s now up to you, I give up.”
Sometimes I have given it over with the clear evidence of my own impotence to do anything anyway; the very last option being commending myself and my situation into the hands of God.
Is that what was going on with Jesus? Was it the last resort? He had been at the mercy of the powers of this world for the last several hours – in the agony of their power. Did he just give up? Had he had enough and was now ready to succumb, to give it up?
I don’t think so. If he had just given up, he would have simply slipped away into the merciful welcoming relief of death.
Instead, having experienced the worst that humanity has to give, the powers of the world having taken their best shot, having been brought to the limits of human frailty and human emotion…
Instead, he proclaims the truth that is at the core of his life and ministry, and one last time he declares, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit,” at the last asserting his control over his destiny… and that by commending himself, committing himself into the care of God, who calls him, “My Beloved.”.
Truth be told, in my own experience God has never failed to be there. Sometimes I have known that only when I have looked backward, reflected back on some part of my life and experience. Sometimes it has proven to be a fearsome thing to be in the hands of God, taking me where I did not want to go. Other times taking me gently to rest beside still waters. But there, always there, ever there – when I let God be there – with me.
And truth be told, we will all, each and every one of us, come to a moment when we will be in the hands of God. We will either fall into those hands or give ourselves over into the hands of God, but either way we will be in God’s hands finally, at last, in our death.
Holy woman, poet and priest, recent e-resident during Lent at Nativity Cathedral, and dear friend Renee Miller has written,
Much of our conversation and exchange with life revolves around trying to gain control where we have none, and avoid the control of those who insist on imposing it on us. It becomes a wearying game, because of the energy it requires. One of the ways we … step out of the game is simply to medicate ourselves with television, the Internet, shopping, eating, and other such indulgences. Essentially, we go to sleep, in order to give ourselves a break.
Imagine waking up to your life and your world with the passion of faith and courage and strength. Imagine seeing your mind, body, and soul being fattened rather than flattened because of your trust in a God who is greater than any difficulty in life, because of your courage that proclaims that the Holy One is ever-present, because of your strength that is grounded in the might of heaven. (You can) have that trust, that courage, that strength.
… We are surrounded on all sides by the protective presence of the Creator. We are not in control— – neither is anyone else. It is the Holy One alone.
So doesn’t it make sense to give ourselves as much time in God’s hands as possible? Doesn’t it make sense to learn about this God who, in the end, will reclaim us as God’s own? Having given us life, God will receive us at the end of it and keep us in love for ever and ever.
Right now, liturgically, we find ourselves in the silence of Jesus’ death, waiting until Sunday to experience what God will do. Was it the right thing at the last to trust?
We are not there yet liturgically, but we do know already what happens on Sunday, early in the morning. So, yes we know, we know it was the right thing for Jesus, and it is the right thing for us, too.
Father, help us to commend ourselves – body, mind, soul and spirit – into your hands. Amen.
