“FATHER, INTO YOUR HANDS …” – THE DEATH-DESTROYING WORD
The Text, St. Luke 23:45-46. “Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two. And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” Having said this, He breathed His last.”
Lord, this is Your Word and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. By Your Word of truth, place us body and soul into the Father’s hands. Amen.
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ:
Jesus says, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” This is the last of His seven words from the cross. This is the death-destroying word.
We know from the Bible that death is “the wages of sin,” and that “sin came into the world, and death through sin.” Because death is connected to having sin, death is a strong preaching of repentance, a warning, a preaching of the Law. Part of this is that it makes us fear. Death exercises power over us.
This is why it’s important to learn the words from our catechism, where you say: “I believe that Jesus Christ … has redeemed me … from death.” To know that Christ has power over death. The illogical surprise is that He redeemed us from death by His death. This was not expected. Death is equated with defeat. When they yelled, “Crucify Him!” they were saying: Get Him out of the way for good, make it so He does no more damage, that is, to their little kingdom.
But the damage Jesus does is to death itself. Notice, Jesus didn’t wait for death to come to Him. Instead of the way it usually is – that a person dies and then the head droops – Jesus first bowed His head and then He died (Jn 19:30). He was in control. He went to meet death like a Warrior charging the enemy.
With the words, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” Jesus was going forward to meet death, to destroy its power. But He did this for you, to destroy death’s power over you, to destroy its power to hold you in the prison of fear and sadness because He conquered it by His own death.
What He also was doing for you was redeeming you, body and soul. God created you to be both body and soul. Death is the separation of soul from body. Your soul waits to be reunited with the body in the resurrection at the last day. At the time of death, the body struggles against this separation. But it isn’t only the body struggling; the soul, the spirit, cries out against death.
When we ask the question, “What happens to a Christian at the time of death?” the answer is that the soul, or spirit, goes to heaven, and the body is buried in the earth to await the resurrection of the body. This is based on more than one Bible verse. But the sure hope that this will happen depends on Jesus winning this for us – what happened to His spirit and His body at His death.
It’s amazing to think that Jesus has a body and also a spirit, or soul. As God, He doesn’t have body or soul. But as a true man, He does. When He was conceived by the Holy Spirit in the womb of the virgin Mary, He received human flesh – not just a human body but also a human soul.
In Jesus’ death we are mostly aware of what happens to His body. He felt physical pain being whipped, pierced and nailed to the cross; He struggled for every breath while on the cross. The death of His body comes when “He breathed His last.”
But He also experienced pain and death in His soul. In Gethsemane, He had said: “My soul is exceedingly sorrowful, even to death.” Now He says: “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.” His worst suffering was in His spirit, forsaken by God on the cross and hated by men. But when we hear Him say, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” we see that just as God would watch over His body in the grave, so also His spirit, His soul, will not evaporate into nothingness but will be in the firm care of God the Father.
Jesus did this for you. He loves you, body and soul. So much, that not only did He take upon Himself a human body and soul but He did so knowing He would experience pain and even death not only in body, but also in His soul. He did something about your bodily pain and death, and also about the anguish and pain, and even death, of your soul. The whole Christ – God and Man – died. He went to meet death to redeem you – and your loved ones – from death. So His cry was “triumphant” (ELH 333:7). Jesus gets the last word.
Jesus did this for you. He was diligent and careful in the moment of His death for both His soul and body, because He was doing it for your soul and your body. He continues to care for you in body and soul.
We want to notice that in these words, “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit,” He not only destroys – destroys death’s power over you – but He does His caring work. Doesn’t He, the Head, also place you who are part of His body, into the Father’s hands with these words? When a baby is baptized, Jesus is putting him/her into the Father’s hands. When I give you the Lord’s Supper, Jesus through me is putting you into the Father’s hands. When I say, “The Lord bless you and keep you,” you’re being committed into the Father’s safe keeping. Jesus commits you – body and soul – into the Father’s hands, where He placed His own soul, as He entrusted His whole self into God’s hands throughout His suffering and death. So we Lutherans pray daily: “Into Your hands we commend ourselves, our bodies and souls and all things.”
God loves you, body and soul. Christ redeemed your body together with your soul, so that your soul will not die but go right away to be with Him in Paradise, and your body in the grave will be kept safe for the Last Day when it will not only be raised by His voice, but glorified with Him, and rejoined with your soul, when we are reunited with all the saints triumphant, so that you – we – will be whole in Him, by Him, and with Him forever. Amen!