Luke 23:46/7th Petition
March 30, 2018
Good Friday
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus~
In the account of our Lord’s Passion from the pen of St. Luke, Jesus’ final words from the cross are words of faith—a prayer of great faith and confidence. Despite all appearances to the contrary—despite every indication that He is completely abandoned by His Father—despite the savage brutality to which He is subjected—Jesus prays with confidence and deep conviction: Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit. And having said this, He breathed His last.
This final prayer of our Lord is nothing new. Jesus is merely quoting from Psalm 31—quoting from the mouth of His ancestor, King David: Into your hands I commit my spirit. Jesus made these words His dying prayer. And saints down through the ages have also prayed these words as earthly life ebbed away. As angry men gnashed their teeth and hurled stones at Saint Stephen, he prayed that the Lord Jesus would receive His spirit. Martin Luther on the night when he died, prayed over and over again, “Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit.”
To “commit” something is sort of like making a deposit—maybe even a bank deposit. In these days of electronic banking and direct deposit, it’s becoming increasingly rare to do what I do two times each month: I drive to my bank, walk in, hand over my paycheck, and make a deposit. And this is an act of trust and faith on my part. I “commit” those funds, confident that when I need them they will be available.
To commit yourself to the Lord is also an act of trust and faith. It acknowledges that He is good and merciful and loving—that He does what He says and keeps His promises. You can deposit yourself with Him. You can commit to Him Your body and soul, your possessions and reputation. You can trust Him.
Father, into Your hands I commit my spirit. Can you pray these words along with Jesus? Can you comfortably and confidently entrust your spirit to your heavenly Father when your last hour comes? Not everyone can, and some for good reason. For some, the hands of God are to be avoided at all costs. In the book of Hebrews it says, “It is a fearful thing—a dreadful thing—to fall into the hands of the living God” (10:31). It is “fearful,” the author explains, for those who keep on sinning deliberately—even after receiving the knowledge of the truth. God’s hands are a “dreadful” place for those who know better—for those who insult the spirit of God’s grace by persistent, deliberate, unrepentant sinning. Our God is holy, which means that He is sinless and hates sin.
How then can sinners commit themselves to this holy God? We must first pray the seventh petition: Deliver us from evil. Before we can commit ourselves into God’s holy hands, we must first confront the problem of evil. We know all about evil. News broadcasts serve up a steady diet of despicable crimes and evil acts: Mass shootings, terrorist bombings, heartless acts of sexual abuse perpetrated against the powerless. And sometimes, even what the media trumpet as “progress” and a “grand step forward,” is actually a despicable evil in God’s eyes. Evil is real and we are surrounded by it.
But there’s a deeper truth concerning evil that never quite makes the headlines. The Scriptures remind us that evil also has a home in our hearts. Evil isn’t just something that finds expression in bars, brothels, and battlefields. Evil finds expression in our lives—in your life. Our liturgy teaches this terrible truth. The liturgy leads us to confess that we are poor, miserable sinners—that we are by nature sinful and unclean. But there’s a tremendous difference between just saying those words and believing them. If we don’t believe them—if we don’t believe that even our hearts are poisoned by evil, then we will never, ever correctly pray, Deliver us from evil. It’s the evil in here from which we most need deliverance. Nor can we deliver ourselves from evil. We must be delivered from it. When it comes to deliverance from evil, we are passive. God is active—very, very active. Deliverance from evil is what He does best.
And so behold the man on the center cross. There you will see God delivering you from evil. Isaiah saw this deliverance from evil centuries before it came to pass. Isaiah saw God’s servant, the Messiah, made to bear the punishment for our evil. He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities, the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed. When we pray, “Deliver us from evil,” we must always pray with the crucifixion in mind. Because there, on a dark Friday afternoon, evil had its way with Jesus.
Thus Jesus teaches us to pray, “Our Father, deliver us from evil.” Notice that Jesus doesn’t have us pray for an end to evil—at least not until our last hour comes and we depart this valley of sorrow for our heavenly home. No, Jesus doesn’t teach us to pray for all evil to be eradicated and eliminated. He teaches us to pray for deliverance from evil. We’re praying to be rescued from it. We’re praying that—in the end, when the smoke clears and the dust settles and the flames subside—we will still be standing, with our living Lord.
This is exactly how God operates in your life. He doesn’t remove all evil, but He does deliver your safely right through it—right through the valley of the shadow of death. Like when the Lord sent a plague of venomous snakes in the book of Numbers. People were dying left and right from snake-bite. The people asked Moses to pray to the Lord to take away the snakes. But the Lord didn’t take away the snakes. He had Moses make a bronze snake on pole. And when anyone looked at that bronze snake they were delivered—delivered from death by snakebite—even as the snakes continued slithering and sinking their fangs into flesh.
There are other examples too. Think of Daniel in the lions’ den. The Lord didn’t take away the lions; He simply delivered Daniel from becoming the lions’ lunch. Or think of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego in the fiery furnace. The Lord didn’t douse the flames. He didn’t turn down the thermostat. He simply delivered those young men—delivered them from evil.
As we gather together on this Good Friday in the year of our Lord 2018, many of us are in rough shape. Temptation slithers around us like venomous snakes. The weariness of worry and grief has left us fatigued to the point of despair. Some are in the lions’ den; others in the fiery furnace. All we know for sure is this: You will be delivered from every evil. For you have been delivered by Jesus—Jesus who became our sin so that we might become the righteousness of God—Jesus who loves you and gave Himself for you.
Trusting Jesus, redeemed by His blood, you too can pray along with Him. You can, with all boldness and confidence pray, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” For despite any appearances to the contrary, your God loves you for Jesus’ sake. He will deliver you from death for Jesus’ sake. You just wait. Just wait until the third day. And then you will see the ultimate deliverance from evil.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
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