After Jesus’ anguish and heart rending cry, “My God, my God why have you forsaken me?”, the storm of sorrow had spent its force. In those last moments of his life, hung on the cross, Jesus must have remembered the times when God had tenderly and gloriously declared, “You are my beloved son, with whom I am well pleased.” He must have remembered that time when he was 12, he had valiantly announced, “Did you not know that I must be about my Father’s business?” He must have remembered the many times he had shared the truth with his disciples, “I and my Father are one.” And so it was right that Jesus should die as he had lived, with his Father’s name on his lips. Using his very last breath, Jesus called out loud, “Father! Into your hands I commend my spirit!”
Into Your hands. God’s hands. Not into the hands of men that were wicked and cruel. The hands that betrayed and struck and lacerated. The hands that flogged and slew and crucified. No, not into those hands but into God’s hands, the mighty hands that stretched out the heavens and laid the earth’s foundation. The hands that shaped the highest mountain and formed the deepest sea. The hands that brought salvation, the hands in whose palms our names are inscribed. God’s hands are also the gentle hands that raise the lowly, that heal the broken hearted. The hands that bind our wounds, that carry us when our hair is grey, and the hands into them, some day, like Jesus, we would want to commend our spirit.
It is a joy unspeakable and a peace indescribable when at the end of our journey on earth, as we draw our last breath we could say the words, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit”.
This prayer should come to our lips naturally, expectantly because it has been on our lips at every moment of our lives. It was there when we first fell in love with all its joy and pain, “Father into your hands I commend my vulnerable heart.” It was there when our first child was born, “Father, into your hands I commend my precious baby.” It was there when life had been a roller coaster of triumphs and disappointments, of joy and sorrow, of fulfilled dreams and fading hopes, “Father into your hands I commend my career, my marriage, my children, my aspiration, my finances, my health, my dreams, my hopes, my being.” Into God’s hands we surrendered every aspect of our lives. Into God’s hands we entrust every page of it.
And when we come to the last page, amidst our own fear of dying, even amidst excruciating pain and unbearable suffering, we should find comfort from the words that had given great comfort to Jesus’ soul at his dying moments, “Father into your hands I commend my spirit”.
We would say it trustingly, longingly, with a confidence knowing that there is a better life awaiting on the other side of glory and there is a place in God’s house that Jesus has gone and prepared for us.
Ruth Bach Yen
