On Good Friday, we revisit the last words of Jesus on the cross.

Words of undeserved grace are shared, when Jesus says, "Father, forgive them for the know not what they do."

Jesus offered an immediate heaven to a repentant thief on the cross when He said, "Truly, truly, I say unto Thee, today you will be with me in paradise."

 

We saw Jesus honor his mother when He asked John to care for her: "Dear woman, here is your son" and "Here is your mother."

When Jesus was abandoned on the cross by His heavenly Father, we rejoice that no believer will ever be abandoned by God: "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?"

 

Jesus demonstrated His human nature when He said, "I thirst."

The cross event is complete and Jesus says, "It is finished."

Finally, we come to the last words of Jesus on the cross: "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit."

On the cross. Jesus begins with a prayer, and He ends with a prayer on His lips. Generally, these are the most overlooked words of Jesus on the cross. And to overlook these words is to miss the message that Jesus shared with His disciples.

These last words of Jesus on the cross come from Psalm 31:5. This was a prayer that every Jewish mamma would teach her child to say before the little one would fall asleep in bed. Maybe you were taught, "Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord My soul to keep," so a Jewish woman would teach her children to say, "Into Your hands I commit my spirit." Jesus added the word "Father" and even on the cross, Jesus died like a child falling asleep in His Father's arms.

Often, as we become adults, we dismiss so many of the things that we learned on our parents' knees, or we disregard the things our Sunday School teachers tell us week in and week out.

Back in the 1960s, famed theologian Karl Barth came to America to lecture at Princeton and Yale and the University of Chicago. The crowds jammed the Rockefeller Chapel at the University of Chicago to hear him speak. At the conclusion, a report asked Dr. Barth what was the single most important discovery he had made in his years of study.

After a pause, the great intellectual professor of Zurich said that the most important words he ever studied were these: "Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so." We never outgrow the simple message of the Gospel.

These last words of Jesus inspired some of the great names in history to use these same words when they were near death. Christopher Columbus, St. Augustine, Polycarp, and many others ended their earthly lives by saying, "Father, into Thy hands I commit my spirit."

St. Luke is the only Gospel writer to include these final words of Jesus. Every word tells us something special:

"Father…" This was Jesus' favorite title for God. It spoke of an intimate relationship that exists for all eternity. His first words on the cross, "Father, forgiven them…" and His last words, "Father, Into Thy hands I commit my spirit."

But, in between He cried out, "My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken Me?" He called him God, not Father, because in this agonizing moment, the perfect, holy, sinless God turned His back upon His Son. Jesus was literally teeming with our sin. So vile was Jesus at that moment that our perfect, holy, sinless God had to abandon His Son, His only Son, whom He loved:

But no longer! Jesus dies with the knowledge that the price has been fully paid, the cup emptied, the burden borne.

"Father, Into Thy hands…" O, the touch of your father's hands. What child does not long for his father love and embrace? A simple hug says, I'm proud of you, it's great to see you, I'm glad you are my son.

For 15 hours, Jesus has been in the hands of wicked men. With their hands, they beat Him, they slapped Him, they crowned Him with thorns. That is all behind Him now. Jesus now returns to His Father's loving hands.

"Father, Into Thy hands I commit My spirit" The word "commit" literally means to deposit something valuable into a safe place. It's the picture of placing your last will and testament into a locked box.

Jesus places His very life, His personal existence, into His Father's hands for safe keeping! "Father, I can no longer take care of myself. I place myself in Your hands."

The moment had come. Jesus had only seconds to live. All that He had come to do has been accomplished. It is time to die.

By this point His physical suffering had reached their climax. Death by crucifixion was, in every sense of the word, excruciating. In fact, that word "excruciating" comes from the Latin word "excruciates" which means "out of the cross."

What a reminder…that no matter what we go through in this sinful world, that no matter who much we suffer, it is nothing compared to the suffering of Jesus Christ for our sins on the cross. If Christ could endure what He was called upon to endure, then how much more will He empower and strengthen us through Word and Sacrament to endure whatever we must face on this journey to heaven.

But these last words of Jesus say even more. Jesus voluntarily gave up His life on the cross. Jesus said in John 10: "The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life, only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have the authority to lay it down and take it back up again."

This crucifixion of Jesus did not happen against Jesus' will. When the time came, Jesus gave up His life voluntarily:

AND He died knowing where He was going… back into His Father's hands!

And so Jesus died like a child falling asleep in His Father's arms. Exhausted, weary, having suffered the worst that man could do. It was a quiet ending, a graceful exit, a peaceful passing from the brutality of this world.

Max Lucado writes these words about the last words of Jesus on the cross: