Jesus’ final words from the Cross were: “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” (Luke 23:46) and “It is finished.” (John 19:30) With this, Christ dies, handing His life over to the Father.
In response, the curtain of the Temple tears in two, rocks split asunder, the dead come out of their tombs, and a massive earthquake erupts. (Matthew 27: 51-53) Nature itself bears witness to this unprecedented moment.
In His human nature, the eternal Son of God, the Second Person of the Most Blessed Trinity, breathes His last, in order to save us from the domain of sin and death.
God enters into death’s inner chamber, breaking the ancient curse and robbing the devil of his power.
His mission of fulfillment
“It is finished” reminds us that Jesus accomplished what He set out to do.
In His conception and birth, in His childhood and hidden years, in His preaching and miracles, in the parables and healings, in His prayerful nights and dinners with sinners and Pharisees alike, in the foot-washing and the establishment of the Eucharist, in His agony and scourging, in His silence before Herod and the carrying of the Cross, in His thirst and rejection, in His forgiveness and compassion, and ultimately in His death, the Lord fulfills the task which the Father had entrusted to Him: The salvation of the human race.
In Jesus’ death, we see the fulfillment of every prophecy, covenant, and hope of the Old Testament beyond anything imagined.
God comes to earth Himself in the person of the Son to wrest us from the grasp of eternal death.
The Lord has done everything that could be done to save us, and now all that remains is the glory of the resurrection which will complete His earthly work and bring it to perfection.
Only in the light of Jesus rising from the dead, can the Scriptures be properly interpreted and understood, as evidenced by the Lord’s conversation with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus.
The feeling of completion
A deep satisfaction lies in the accomplishment of a difficult and challenging task.
Painting the house, writing a lengthy term paper, seeing a business merger through, recovering from a painful surgery, and planning a wedding all require enormous amounts of energy, commitment, sacrifice, patience, and perseverance.
But when a thing is done, we can stand back and survey the wondrous results with pride, satisfaction, and gratitude.
So too, even in the midst of the horror of the crucifixion, Jesus must have felt a surging power of fulfillment, that this moment, terrible in its pain and pathos, was winning the human race back to the heart of the Father!
The Lord was fulfilling the Father’s will, He had done what He had set out to do, and even in the darkness of Good Friday, the Father was still in charge, winning His world back through the sacrifice of His Son.
“Father, into your hands I commend my spirit” reflects that trust and surrender that Christ always evidenced towards the Father.
Time and time again, especially in John’s Gospel, Jesus reiterates the point that He has only come to do the will of the Father, the One who sent Him.
Christ’s complete obedience to His Father is the perfect example of what it means to be a child of God.
To follow the Lord, to seek to do His will in all things, to ask pardon for our sins, to love as God loves, generously, freely, and unconditionally, to not seek comfort and ease, to zealously live our faith and proclaim it to others, and in the end, to hand our frail, mortal life over to the One who has created, redeemed, and sanctified us is the mission and work of a disciple.
Finishing the work
As a priest and bishop, I have often known the privilege of sitting and praying with someone who is near death.
To be in the presence of a person who has wrestled with the fear, pain, and uncertainty of dying, and has finally commended their spirit fully into the hands of the Father is to know a peace that is not of this world.
Such a person is completely at ease, exuding a quiet joy, already resting in the merciful heart of the Lord as if such a soul already has one foot in the mystery of eternity.
As we move into the mystery of another Holy Week, we ask the Lord to ultimately finish the good work that He has begun in us, to give us the confidence and grace to hand our lives over to Him, to surrender all that is still sinful, broken, and dead within us, to place our hope solely in Jesus Christ, crucified and risen. Our mission on earth is not yet finished.
Many of us still have “miles to go before we sleep,” as Robert Frost put it, and yet, even in the midst of a life filled with tasks, anxieties, responsibilities, and struggles, we can know the peace of obedience, surrender, and hope.
Throughout the day, we can place ourselves anew in the Father’s hands.
Life is not yet finished for us, but we can already taste the joy and peace of the Kingdom of Heaven.