GOOD eazof ff. of: “Ee . oan os a cf en oo. REUNION
7TH WORD , {FA MM 8 See iE LUKE 23:44-49
an i

At po time do words seem so terribly inadequate - as this:}this

-_—_,

moment-when we reflect on the death of Jesus Christ and his Toud, last

cry. "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." | there are times when
i | emi

men ought to weap the bitter tears of grief and joy instead of talking.
— TS Tg

This is one of those times.\ In that spirit - before I do what talking

a el —

I need to do - allow me to share with you a prayer, written by Michel

Quoist, under the title "Jesus dies on the Cross.”

A few hours more,

A few minutes more,

A few instants more,

For thirty-three years it has been going on

For thirty-three years you have lived fully minute after minute.

You can no longer escape, now; you are there, at the end of
your life, at the end of your road.

You are at the last extremity, at the edge of a precipice.

You must take the last step,

The last step of love,

The last step of life that ends in death.

You hesitate «+-..-

Three hours are jong, three hours of agony,

Longer than three years of life

Longer than thirty years of life.

You must decide, Lord, all is ready around you.

You are thee, motionless, on your Cross,

You have renounced all activity other than embracing these
crossed planks for which you were made,

And yet, there is still life in your nailed body.

Let mortal flesh die, and make way for Eternity.

-2-
Now, life slips from each limb, one by one, finding refuge
in his still-beating heart,
Immeasurab|@e heart,
Overflowing heart,
Heart heavy as the world, the world of sins and miseries that

it bears.

Lord, one more effort.

Mankind is there, waiting unknowingly for the cry of its Saviour.
Your brothers are there; they need you.

Your Father bends over you, already holding out his arms.

Lord, save us,

Save us.

see,

He has taken his heavy heart.
And

Slowly,

Laborously,

Alone between heaven and earth,

In the awesome night,

With passionate love,

He has gathered his life,

He has gathered the sin of the world.
And in a cry,

He has given ALL.

"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit."

Christ has just died for us. |

-3-
When Robert McAfee Brown was at Union Theotogical Seminary his

fellow professor and close friend, David Roberts, died \one week later

a ail a

Brown wrote an essay, A Fragmentary Adventure in Grace in which he said:

| Meee his death, which at first seemed to me totally bad, has become a

Sacramental means of grace for me, and in that sense at least has shown

emp mmm ve

foFfth the Tove and the goodness and the mercy of God. \.In the midst of
the deepest sorrow I have yet known in this life, God has been pleased
to reveal to me something of his ove and graces. "| (#165 The Pseudonyms
of God}

That, in essence, is the reason we are here this afternoon. The

death of desus Christ may loom a& the most monstrous crime in history:

and yet, at the same time, it is the very be st thing that ever happened

nee

to you and me.\ That which, on the one hand, is totally bad, becomes for

annie |

niet ee aal
usS a means of grace, the supreme demonstration of God's love for us. His
7

last words, before he died, become words of significance - because there
nin)

—a. Le

was far more happening on Calvary than a tragic martyrdom.

"Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit." | Those are words of

courage,not - as has sometimes been suggested, words of stoic resignation.
—— sie a

They come from the Psalter, which Jesus learned as a child and used all

a_i

his life\ Once before, on the cross, he had reached back into the history

el 7

of his peopte - From P Psalm 22,\"My God, My God, why hast thou forsaken me?"|

And now, at the moment of death, a stanza from the 31st Psalm.\ That

Ce rr eerreremmich Ti

particular Psalm is peculiar:\its meter is most irregular the man who wrote

Fy aenimmmammanhaaihiial ee Le a al
——

it was in deep troubte:\ and his thoughts come tumbling out - not in

Ee

sequence, yet they affirm, time and time again that greatest of Israel's

truths - that God is present in adversity; that regardless of what was

=e

happening historically, ail will be well ultimately.\ It is an act of guiet

—,

and singular courage to affirm that at the moment of death.
er ennmmemmnnamiiatiel pv miaamndmianamaneainenl

We need to remember that crucifixion was specifically designed for

, Cicero ; . .
more than execution.\ Gegkee called it the most horrible punishment

Del

-4-

possible. \ The Romans did not inflict it on their own citizens.| It was

Ln ae Oe
reserved, rather, for barbarians, foreigners, traitors - the despicable
erin rr, =_e. ee .

scum of the earth who needed to be humiliated and broken as well executed.
neal

| amen

And it was marveouslly effective. \Men cursed at their executioners from

the cross.\ men pled and begged and screamed and finally babbied tncoherently.
When he was in Dachau, Martin Niem@ller, could see the gallows from

his cell, and day after day watched and listened as prisoners were put to

death | Later he could observe that (the gallows became my most reliable

teacher. \ There were always two questions in my wind: [what will happen

on the day they lead you there and put you to the test? \ When_they put

that rape around your neck, what will be your last words?\ Will you cry

out,\"You crimminais,scum! \There's a God in heaven! \ You'll get yours!'? }

And the other question was ,\What would have happened if Jesus had said it,

if He had taken his last breath to cry out to the soldiers and the Sanhedrin,
‘Crimminals, scum! \ this is my father's wortd.\ You'll get yours! '2" |

ited ee

(He speaks from the Cross, P.19-20)

Instead he said “Forgive them" ~ "Today you will be with me in
paradise" - “Woman, behold your son"-and- "Father into thy hands I commit

my spirit" \ 1s it any woder then that a centurian, a rqugh, courageous man
himself, used to seeing people die, said “Surely this man was innocent -
surely this man was the Son of God"?

ie el

Quiet courage these words speak.\ Not brash ~ boistrous:\but strong -
——l lll Ca ITE TEENY

baa]

honest ~- unbending - proud + inspiring.

In the play Will Shakespear, Queen Elizabeth says:

"T'T1 not bow

To the gentle Jesus of the women, [....

But to the man who hung twixt earth and heaven
Six mortal hours and knew the end (as strength
and custom was) three days away, yet ruled

His soul and body so, that when the sponge

Blessed his cracked lips with promise of relief

-5-
And quick oblivion, He would not drink
He turned His head away and would not drink
Spat out the anodyne And would not drink;

This was a God for kings and queens with pride,

And Him I follow." (Clemence Dawe}

Courage, but also trust.\"Father, into thy nands...*\ Jesus taught

us to call God father.\ \"OQur father, who art in heaven..."] Martin Luther,

taal

commenting on the Lord'sPrayer called then, (“rrienad , Sweet and tender

words." \ Hen have filled libraries with the synonyms, pseudonyms and
LT

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intellectual definitions of god.\ Theologians have piled adjective upon

adjective in an attempt to contain the reality of God within the perimiters

ee

of the human intellect.\ Jesus said "Father" .t "Abba Father" which remains

EE

untranslated because the closest English equivalent is "Daddy" \ God_is

personal, intimate, loving - as a father is to his own children. \ And the
ACL,

i, ey i el ~~

bond between him and his children 1s one of trust.

Thomas Wolfe once wrote:\"The deepest search in life, it seemed to

rein

me, the thing that in one way or another was central to all living, was

man's search for a father \ not merely the father of his Flesh, not merely

the lost father of his youth, but the image of strength and wisdom external
— mundi mand

rn

to his need and superior to his hunger, to which the belief and power of

—_— a

his own life could be united."

To live through the death of one's own father is to know the reality
ey

a

nie cre

of that.\ To have a father is to have someone toa trust \ someone to whom
gerne NAA, catenin red

to go: \someane with whom to share.\ Not that fathers are omnipotent.
Anyone who has one. or is one knows that a Father's power is limited by
ee pr ann

his very fatherhood. \ Fathers can't always protect their children from harm.

nal

In fact, the very essence of fatherhood is loving and letting go} loving

—_——

and granting freedom and then loving all the more.\ A father is one who

comes running.down the road after us when we've been in the far country:
ie en

one whose love is not altered by our performance :\one whose love so shares
Si TE

i Ct

-§-

our hurts that somehow pain becomes bearable and life liveable. | the Tast

Dama Ga =n

words of Jesus are elloquent affirmation that we are not orphans in the

universe:\we are not alone :\we have a Father.
I el

My own son taught me what itt means to trust his father \ We were

going for measte innoculations, and had prepared them all by saying we

were gaing to get a shot. \ te was unusually guiet in the ar.\ Instead

of running dead with the others he held my hand and nsisted on staying

WS
beside me throughout.\ Afterward he whi still quiet, and in the car,

Liem al a_i

on the way home, he said:("baddy, Am I going to be with God now?"{ And

biel

suddenly we realized that to him "shot" had meant guns and pain and dying.

bee cee eel 7_—ee or EC,

But that he walked right into it trusting.

Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit. Courage - trust - and peace.
er

Paul Tillich once observed that the face of everyman hears the image
eatin en ol

af death:\ and that we are not free until we deal with that\ And many

philosophers and theologians have identified our awareness of and our

Dna 7
fear of death as the source of dread, anxiety and des air| "Peace" - “Awl peace
"Peace of mind" = fares rather well so long as it is superficial:| but it

aati teil ees on
comes crashing down the minute we contemplate our own death.

Jesus Christ died. \ that is the very best news of alt thats what

takes this a "Good" friday:\that's what brings peace - peace that passes

understanding within our grasp.
tel

When his friend Charles Williams died, €. S. Lewis wrote: |*No event

Fie Amie il

has so corroborated my faith in the mext world as Williams did simply

rei

by dying. \ when the idea of death and the idea of Williams thus met in

my mind, it was the idea of death that was changed."} (R.M.Brown, The

Pseudonymns of God. P. 160)

So, this afternoon, as we come to the conclusion ofour vigil, I invite

Tn,
you to contemplate your own death. \ and to mest that idea in your mind with
‘Eollepygprecctereetr eT ed tinned

Fatma

another idea:™Jesus Christ dying and saying, |"Father - into thy hands I

nani a,
commit my spirit.
Jesus Christ died for us. \ He died to sat us free from the fear of

ee,

-7-
of death:\ he died to demonstrate the extravagance of God's love: | he died
to give us peace.

No one pondered the mystery and wonder of it all more than St. Paul.

And he couid write:
ee LES
"For I am sure that neither death nor life... nor
anything else in all creation, will be able to

separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus

our Lord." |

Courage - Trust - Peace

"9 death, where is thy victory?

0 death, where is thy sting?
Thanks be to God, who gives us the victory. AMEN

Father, we have said all we know to say. Help us now, as we leave, to
know that the wortd is a different place because of this day. Through

Jesus Christ our Lord. AMEN