Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit I was on my way out of Church last Sunday and I came across two men, Bill McIlmiel and
Grant Moyer who, I discovered, were talking about the "Blood Moon" eclipse which took
place last Tuesday, even though no one was able to see it due to cloud cover... and sleep!
(It began at 2 AM). Grant asked me if I had heard anything about the so called "Blood Moon Prophecy" , an
idea popularized by pastors John Hagee and Mark Biltz, which states that an ongoing
tetrad (a series of four consecutive total lunar eclipses, with six full moons in between,
and no intervening partial lunar eclipses) which began with the April 2014 lunar eclipse
(did you get all that?) is a sign of significant things to come. Biltz believes that the Second
Coming of Christ will coincide with the final eclipse of the tetrad, while Hagee only believes
the eclipses are a sign of a coming change in the course of history for Israel. Well, to be honest with you, I didn't know anything about that at all. But I thanked them
for giving me a place to begin my Good Friday message concerning the last word of Jesus
from the Cross: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit". Stay with me, and you'll see
the tie-in, shortly, Lord willing. I did a little web search after talking to those guys, and came across a Wikipedia article
that listed some predicted dates for apocalyptic events such as the Rapture, Last
Judgment, or any other event that would result in the end of humanity, civilization, the
planet, or the entire universe. This list (which is obviously selective, but still has nearly
200 entries) shows the dates of predictions from notable groups or individuals of when
the world was, or is, forecast to end, starting from the year 634 BC! There are many
famous people on this list, from Christopher Columbus to Cotton Mather to Charles
Manson, Jean Dixon. (Harold Camping himself gets six mentions. All separate predictions!
If at first you don't succeed... ) April 18, 2014
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit I also, out of curiosity, looked up a number of doomsday web sites, and one thing that I
noticed immediately that many of them have in common, is that they don't like to write
with paragraph divisions, and they favor run on sentences. Perhaps they feel that the
nonsense of their theories can be hidden in a forest of many words. What is obvious is that this is a subject that creates quite a lot of interest! People are
fascinated by talk about the end of the world. I remember a couple years ago when there was quite a buzz about the Mayan calendar,
which ended with the 2012 winter solstice. People took that as proof, somehow, that the
world was going to end that day, and a lot of people were nervous. (Apparently, what
really happened is that the Mayans just ran out of clay tablets.) The HVAC repair guy at our church - who spends more time there than some of my
staff members - stopped me outside the church one afternoon about that time, and in all
seriousness asked me if I thought there was "anything to this 'Mayan thing'". Well, you know, as a pastor, I would have liked to have said, "Absolutely, there is, and you
need to get yourself into church... and don't miss another Sunday", but as I've never
believed that fear is a good motivator for real piety, I told him... that "There is something
to this, but it's not exactly what you might think! I seriously doubt that the world as we
know it is going to end on December 21, 2012, but on the other hand...let's be honest, for
a significant number of people, the world will end on that day." And, I said, "My friend, one
day the world is going to end for you, too." So, really the date isn't all that important - but
our being ready for the end - whenever it comes - most certainly is important." And it
always will be. A guy named Stephen Kent, a University of Alberta sociologist, was quoted on a Website
that talked about the phenomenon of failed doomsday prophecies, and how they impact
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit some people very deeply. I thought his comments were especially interesting in that he
was not speaking from a Christian perspective, but from the perspective of his
understanding of human nature as a sociologist. Kent says "Part of the reason that failed doomsdays can be so traumatic is that they
appear to be a way that people grapple with their mortality. Believers usually think they'll
survive the end, whether by being one of God's chosen people, by building an
underground bunker, or by hitching a ride on a friendly UFO." But listen to this sentence:
"If you survive the end of the world" Kent said, "you never have to face your own death." "The believers always predict that their special knowledge will allow them to survive, that
they will escape the mortality that all of us face, and so far, everyone's been proven wrong
on that fact." We've heard today a number of fascinating and moving perspectives on the Last Words of
Jesus from the Cross. At First UMC, pastor HeyYoung and I have been preaching a Lenten
Series based on these last words, so we've been living with them for almost two months
now. It's been an awesome thing to ponder these statements of Jesus, knowing as we do the
extent of his suffering. Knowing that any thought that Jesus decided to speak aloud from
the Cross required an enormous physical effort, just to raise himself up enough to gasp
the breath necessary to be able to speak. As we've heard throughout this afternoon, Jesus' suffering was not limited just physical
pain. Now that was bad enough, but as I shared in one of my messages, Jesus also suffered in
ways that likely were even more difficult to bear than the gruesome physical pain – i.e., the
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit emotional pain of seeing his friends and followers turn their backs on him, being unjustly
accused and tried, the ridicule that he received from not only the religious leaders, but
also from ordinary people passing by who joined in. He was betrayed by one of his own,
denied by another. Heaped on all of that, there is the Holy Mystery of what it meant that “God made him who
knew no sin to be sin for us…” that Jesus took upon himself the consequences of my sin,
and yours… to the point of death… to the point that for the first time since eternity
‘began’, for the first time since the dawn of Creation, Jesus, on this Cross, does not sense
the presence of God the Father within him… “My God, my God, why have you forsaken
me?” And yet, with all that weight crushing down upon him, the words that he speaks from this
Cross are words of trust, words of compassion, words of forgiveness and hope. They all
were teaching us something. And now we've come to the last word... a word, which to me, is the ultimate expression of
trust. Luke writes that Jesus called out with a loud voice [again, think of the effort
involved] "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." When he had said this, he
breathed his last. He called out these words with a loud voice, I believe, because he wanted to be sure that
no one missed them. He's once again, telling us something very important. Nevertheless,
the words themselves are directed to God the Father, as they are certainly a prayer,
perhaps one of the most significant prayers anyone can pray. You probably know that these words, like Jesus' Fourth word ("My God, my God, why
have you forsaken me") are a direct quote from Jesus' hymn book, the Psalms. In this case,
Jesus was quoting from Psalm 31. Let me read them in their context: April 18, 2014
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit In you, O Lord, I seek refuge; do not let me ever be put to shame; in your righteousness deliver me. Incline your ear to me; rescue me speedily. Be a rock of refuge for me, a strong fortress to save me. You are indeed my rock and my fortress; for your name's sake lead me and guide me, take me out of the net that is hidden for me, for you are my refuge. Into your hand I commit my spirit. Adam Hamilton in his Book, "Final Words from the Cross" comments: "This was Jesus' dying prayer. It was a prayer of absolute trust in God. Jesus had forgiven
his enemies, offered mercy to a thief, prayed for his mother, come to a place where he felt
abandoned by God, and expressed his physical thirst; but before his death, he declared
the shout of triumph,"It is finished," and offered this beautiful prayer of absolute trust in
his Father." William Barkley, in his NT commentary on Luke suggests that this prayer from Psalm 31:5,
"Into your hands I commit my spirit," was a prayer that Jewish children were taught by
their mothers - to pray as they went to sleep each night (kind of like 'Now I lay me/ down
to sleep' but with a little more theological weight.) Hamilton invites us to consider this
precious thought - that Mary herself may have taught this to Jesus when he was just a boy,
and now, as he dies... this same simple prayer is on his lips. Again: Hamilton's words: "On the cross, Jesus again was teaching us how to pray. When we're facing darkness and
despair, when we're facing the valley of the shadow of death, when we're facing the
unknown, what should we pray? "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit."" Let's revisit the comment of that sociologist, Stephen Kent. Remember, he was referring to
why some people gravitate to often whacky theories about the end of the world as we
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit know it, and he said, the underlying rationale that drives this is "If you survive the end of
the world, you never have to face your own death." So, it comes down to a basic question of life and death - "How do I live, what do I need to
know so that I can face death without fear - or, avoid it completely?" And, humans that we
are, some choose a very flimsy hope based on convoluted theories combining astronomy,
astrology, paranoia, and obscure Bible passages instead of the simple truth that Jesus
came to share and model for us all: Trust in God, no matter what is happening in life, and you will be fine, you will be blessed!
You will live! Get ready for your inevitable death by living well - love other people, be
faithful to God's leading, and serve Christ every day... in short: live this prayer every
moment: "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit." My mechanic friend who was concerned about the so-called Mayan prediction was
missing a much bigger point - unless The Lord returns very soon, we're still all going to
die someday! It's very unlikely that anyone who has lost their life in an accident, or as the
victim of a heinous crime woke up on the morning of their demise saying like the Star
Trek Klingons "Today is a very good day to die." Maybe its not a 'good day' but it surely
might be 'the day.' Are we ready? There are a lot of unattributable quotes about famous people who were asked what they
would do tomorrow if they knew that the world would end at the end of that day.
Apocryphal or not, I like some of the answers. Someone once found Francis of Assisi
hoeing his garden and put the question to him. Francis replied, “I would finish hoeing my
garden.” And I remember how John Wesley was asked what he would do differently if he
knew Jesus’ second coming would occur the next day. Wesley replied, "Nothing." He
would continue with what he planned to do, including calling on a friend and preaching
that night in a nearby town. April 18, 2014
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Into Your Hands I Commit My Spirit What a different perspective the 'end' takes when we are living our lives in the same
context as this final prayer of our Lord: in simple trust. In quiet hope. Into your hands, my
Father, I commit my spirit - my past, my present, my future, my life, my death ...." It is
yours... See, Jesus didn't decided at that moment on the Cross to commit his spirit, his soul,
his life, to God... this was the way he lived every day. This was how he lived every day. And because of that, when the end did come, he faced it
as he did every other day, the same way that he faced every trial, every testing, every
insult, every disappointment... "Father, God, I belong to you." This world is not my home, I know I am not alone, I know that you are with me and that
you will deliver me from whatever it is that I am facing at this moment, either in this life or
the next." "Father, into your hands I commit my spirit". These are not only words to hear, my brothers and sisters, they are words to live by. April 18, 2014
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