Completed and committed

The 7th and final words: "Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, 'Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!'" And having said this, He breathed His last." (Lk23:46) Jesus was not killed; men did not take His life. He lay it down. As He hung on that cross, He breathed in and out; in and out; until, after all was fulfilled and His work of salvation and redemption was completed, He willed His breath to cease. Somehow I had never noticed before that He said these last words of committing Himself to His Father "with a loud voice." After the agonizing prayer in the garden, after the unimaginable stress of all night trials, after the brutal scourging, after the physical tortures and pain of the crucifixion and the far far more horrific and incomprehensible spiritual torture of bearing the sins of the world, after the emotional pain of betrayal and humiliation and abandonment, after all that, Jesus still was able to cry out "with a loud voice" that He was coming home to His Father, His work finished, man's redemption secured, heaven's glories ahead.

But how I love Oswald Sanders comment about Jesus' final words: "The habits of a lifetime are not easily shaken off. The Master was a Man of prayer and a Man of the Book. How natural that His last words should blend both characteristics, for this word is at once a prayer and a quotation from the Old Testament. He could not have been more appropriately occupied in the moment of death. He ended His ministry as He began it--with a quotation from Scripture on His lips.

O might we be so characterized as people of prayer and people of the Word! In the midst of pain or crisis or stress or strain, what overflows from our hearts? If we have immersed ourselves in His Word and daily practiced His presence in prayer, then that is what will flow from our surrendered hearts. As I have contemplated my Saviour hanging on the cross this Lent, I have been more convicted than ever of my sin and more grateful than ever of His salvation. He could have come off that cross at any moment. Those nails did not hold Him... but His love did. As C.K. Chesterton wrote: "The cross cannot be defeated... for it is Defeat." Death defeated. Sin defeated. Satan defeated. Man redeemed. Christ's work completed. And to the Father committed. Thank You, thank You, thank You, Lord Jesus. To You be the glory!