Father, "into Your hands I commit My spirit"

 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.  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.  So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying,  "Certainly this was a righteous Man!"  And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned.  But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.  He had not consented to their decision and deed.  He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.  This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before.  That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.  And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.  Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils.  And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.

- Luke 23:44-56

On Saturday we read that there were also two others, criminals, led with Jesus to be put to death.  And when they had come to the place called Calvary, there they crucified Him, and the criminals, one on the right hand and the other on the left.  Then Jesus said, "Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they do."  And they divided His garments and cast lots.  And the people stood looking on.  But even the rulers with them sneered, saying, "He saved others; let Him save Himself if He is the Christ, the chosen of God."  The soldiers also mocked Him, coming and offering Him sour wine, and saying, "If You are the King of the Jews, save Yourself."   And an inscription also was written over Him in letters of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew:  THIS IS THE KING OF THE JEWS.  Then one of the criminals who were hanged blasphemed Him, saying, "If You are the Christ, save Yourself and us."  But the other, answering, rebuked him, saying, "Do you not even fear God, seeing you are under the same condemnation?  And we indeed justly, for we receive the due reward of our deeds; but this Man has done nothing wrong."  Then he said to Jesus, "Lord, remember me when You come into Your kingdom."  And Jesus said to him, "Assuredly, I say to you, today you will be with Me in Paradise."

 Now it was about the sixth hour, and there was darkness over all the earth until the ninth hour.  Then the sun was darkened, and the veil of the temple was torn in two.  Darkness has already been seen and discussed throughout the Gospels, as that which indicates the absence of God, of evil.  Here it is a sign of His human death, a loss to the world, in which even nature participates just as He was fully human.  Those familiar with deep depression and grief can testify to perceptions of darkness even in the bright sun of the afternoon.  The veil of the temple is that which separated the Most Holy Place from the rest of the temple.  It is a symbol of the separation between God and man.  Christ's death opens the way into the presence of God for all people, my study bible says, giving us access to that which is most holy of all:  God Himself.   It is a sign that through His death, He conquers death for all, for our true life. 

And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, "Father, 'into Your hands I commit My spirit.'"  This phrase is in quotations because Jesus is praying; it is from Psalm 31:5.  He doesn't have His life taken from Him, but will voluntarily commit it to the Father.  My study bible says that His was the first human soul not to be taken to Hades; rather it is freely given into the hands of God.  Thereby, Christ frees all of humanity from death's grip.  His death reconciles mankind to God, my study bible notes, not by satisfying the Father's need for blood-justice, but rather by causing each aspect of our corrupt or "fallen" human nature to be transformed, for whatever divinity touches is healed.  Christ accepts human nature in order to sanctify human nature.  He accepts our weakness in order to make us strong.  He takes on our sin in order to free us from sin.  He suffers in order to transfigure suffering.  And He enters death in order to destroy it (1 Corinthians 15:20-28).  This complete healing through transformation of all of humanity -- and even in elements of the world such as bread and wine -- is our salvation.  It is true communion.

So when the centurion saw what had happened, he glorified God, saying,  "Certainly this was a righteous Man!"  And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned.  But all His acquaintances, and the women who followed Him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.  St. Cyril of Alexandria says of this centurion, "Observe that no sooner had Christ endured the Passion on the Cross for our sakes than He began to win many unto knowledge of truth."  Perhaps the same can be said for many among the crowd who beat their breasts.  Those who stand watching, His followers and acquaintances, form the very image of witnessing.

Now behold, there was a man named Joseph, a council member, a good and just man.  He had not consented to their decision and deed.  He was from Arimathea, a city of the Jews, who himself was also waiting for the kingdom of God.  This man went to Pilate and asked for the body of Jesus.  Then he took it down, wrapped it in linen, and laid it in a tomb that was hewn out of the rock, where no one had ever lain before.  My study bible suggests that if the apostles had buried Christ, doubters could claim that His body was simply hidden away.  Joseph being both a council member and a good and just man refutes any possibility that Christ's body was deceptively hidden by the apostles.   The spiritual significance of a tomb where no one had ever lain before is that Christ died a death unlike any other who had ever died.  This is a death without corruption, one leading to victory over the grave itself. 

That day was the Preparation, and the Sabbath drew near.  And the women who had come with Him from Galilee followed after, and they observed the tomb and how His body was laid.  Then they returned and prepared spices and fragrant oils.  And they rested on the Sabbath according to the commandment.  Jesus' birth was in a cave (2:7), which still serves in the Middle East as a place for sheltering animals.  His rest in the tomb fulfills this image of His birth, and also reveals the ultimate purpose of His coming, my study bible says.  The faith of the women, while stronger than that of the hiding disciples, was still imperfect in that they prepared for the corruption of Christ's body.  The women rest on the Sabbath.  My study bible notes that as God rested from His work of creation on the original Sabbath (Genesis 2:1-3), so now Christ rests from the work of the new creation on the Sabbath.  By doing so, He gives the Sabbath its ultimate meaning and fulfills the Law even in death. 

Christ's death is such a paradoxical, inescapable conundrum in some sense.  One might ask, with many who do not hold Christ as divine, how can God die?  One might ask, with many Christian believers, why did God die?  Certainly, this one central event in salvation history gave us those paradoxes deliberately, and leaves us with those questions quite deliberately.  His death is voluntary; the Gospels hammer that fact home over and over again to us.  He has warned the apostles repeatedly what will happen to Him before they ever head toward Jerusalem.  And when the time comes, He deliberately goes as He has warned them.  He knows who His betrayer is.  He knows all that will happen.  And yet, in the midst of all this, He holds salvation out to all, even to Judas, even to the men who come to arrest Him.  He holds salvation out to every last minute, to His dying breath, to the criminal at the Cross, even to the centurion who recognizes what kind of Man this is.  This death that is deliberate, which He has called His hour of glory (see John 12:27-33), is that which surrenders and destroys death for all the rest of us.  The veil of the temple is torn in two; by experiencing death, our God severs the power of death over any of us, so that His life may be in us and we may be with Him.  I'm reading a book titled Everywhere Present:  Christianity in a One-Storey Universe, by Father Stephen Freeman.  In it, Fr. Freeman speaks about our understanding of Christ's life, insisting on a wholistic vision of our salvation.  That is, Christ does not "go away" to live somewhere else until we can join Him.  Rather, this death on the Cross is a transfiguration of death, and of all things that suggest death in our separation from God, so that we may live life -- in the here and now -- with the spirit of Christ infusing our lives.  That means that His ministry continues to heal us, is ever-present with us, manifests in our lives.  Certainly the love that people can encounter in Christ, in prayer with the saints, in endless, countless stories of faith, teaches us something about the living power of Christ who has conquered all forms of death for us.  For the lack of love in life is a kind of death, it kills spirit and soul and hope, and puts limitations on children and adults alike.  If nothing else testifies to the great power of life in Christ's death on the Cross, it is the love that people know from their prayers, from encounters with the holy, and from first-hand experience and expression from those other people who have the love of God inside of them and share it.  This is testimony.  It is letting our light shine, as He described.  And it is all that He has died for on the Cross, so that all may see and know and find that transformational reality that takes on all things for us, so that we, too, may be transformed in His life.  God is "everywhere present and filling all things," as the Orthodox prayer to the Holy Spirit proclaims, meaning that Christ has come into our world in order to conquer every boundary that keeps us from union with God.  And this is the power and meaning of that death, the real answer to all our questions.  St. Gregory of Nazianzus famously writes, "For that which He has not assumed He has not healed; but that which is united to His Godhead is also saved."   Our Lord became human in order to save us in all things, through all things, in all ways -- and that required also the experience of a human death to be united to His Godhead, His true life for all of us.  Therein is the great power of the Cross, in all the ways we need His help, His saving energies and life, in all the ways the world may present us, too, with death in any form.  He -- and those with whom He shares Himself -- is the hope of the hopeless, and we put our trust and hope in Him just for the power of that Cross.