"_Father, into thy hand I commend my spirit_."--St Luke xxiii. 46.
Neither St Matthew nor St Mark tells us of any words uttered by our
Lord after the _Eloi_. They both, along with St Luke, tell us of a cry
with a loud voice, and the giving up of the ghost; between which cry
and the giving up, St Luke records the words, "Father, into thy hands I
commend my spirit." St Luke says nothing of the Eloi prayer of
desolation. St John records neither the _Eloi_, nor the _Father into
thy hands_, nor the loud cry. He tells us only that after Jesus had
received the vinegar, he said, "_It is finished_," and bowed his head,
and gave up the ghost.
Will the Lord ever tell us why he cried so? Was it the cry of relief at
the touch of death? Was it the cry of victory? Was it the cry of
gladness that he had endured to the end? Or did the Father look out
upon him in answer to his _My God_, and the blessedness of it make him
cry aloud because he could not smile? Was such his condition now that
the greatest gladness of the universe could express itself only in a
loud cry? Or was it but the last wrench of pain ere the final repose
began? It may have been all in one. But never surely in all books, in
all words of thinking men, can there be so much expressed as lay
unarticulated in that cry of the Son of God. Now had he made his Father
Lord no longer in the might of making and loving alone, but Lord in
right of devotion and deed of love. Now should inward sonship and the
spirit of glad sacrifice be born in the hearts of men; for the divine
obedience was perfected by suffering. He had been amongst his brethren
what he would have his brethren be. He had done for them what he would
have them do for God and for each other. God was henceforth inside and
beneath them, as well as around and above them, suffering with them and
for them, giving them all he had, his very life-being, his essence of
existence, what best he loved, what best he was. He had been among
them, their God-brother. And the mighty story ends with a cry.
Then the cry meant, _It is finished_; the cry meant, _Father, into thy
hands I commend my spirit_. Every highest human act is just a giving
back to God of that which he first gave to us. "Thou God hast given me:
here again is thy gift. I send my spirit home." Every act of worship is
a holding up to God of what God hath made us. "Here, Lord, look what I
have got: feel with me in what thou hast made me, in this thy own
bounty, my being. I am thy child, and know not how to thank thee save
by uplifting the heave-offering of the overflowing of thy life, and
calling aloud, 'It is thine: it is mine. I am thine, and therefore I am
mine.'" The vast operations of the spiritual as of the physical world,
are simply a turning again to the source.
The last act of our Lord in thus commending his spirit at the close of
his life, was only a summing up of what he had been doing all his life.
He had been offering this sacrifice, the sacrifice of himself, all the
years, and in thus sacrificing he had lived the divine life. Every
morning when he went out ere it was day, every evening when he lingered
on the night-lapt mountain after his friends were gone, he was offering
himself to his Father in the communion of loving words, of high
thoughts, of speechless feelings; and, between, he turned to do the
same thing in deed, namely, in loving word, in helping thought, in
healing action towards his fellows; for the way to worship God while
the daylight lasts is to work; the service of God, the only "divine
service," is the helping of our fellows.
I do not seek to point out this commending of our spirits to the Father
as a duty: that is to turn the highest privilege we possess into a
burden grievous to be borne. But I want to shew that it is the simplest
blessedest thing in the human world.
For the Human Being may say thus with himself: "Am I going to sleep--to
lose consciousness--to be helpless for a time--thoughtless--dead? Or,
more awful consideration, in the dreams that may come may I not be weak
of will and scant of conscience?--Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit. I give myself back to thee. Take me, soothe me, refresh me,
'make me over again.' Am I going out into the business and turmoil of
the day, where so many temptations may come to do less honourably, less
faithfully, less kindly, less diligently than the Ideal Man would have
me do?--Father, into thy hands. Am I going to do a good deed? Then, of
all times,--Father, into thy hands; lest the enemy should have me now.
Am I going to do a hard duty, from which I would gladly be turned
aside,--to refuse a friend's request, to urge a neighbour's
conscience?--Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. Am I in pain?
Is illness coming upon me to shut out the glad visions of a healthy
brain, and bring me such as are troubled and untrue?--Take my spirit,
Lord, and see, as thou art wont, that it has no more to bear than it
can bear. Am I going to die? Thou knowest, if only from the cry of thy
Son, how terrible that is; and if it comes not to me in so terrible a
shape as that in which it came to him, think how poor to bear I am
beside him. I do not know what the struggle means; for, of the
thousands who pass through it every day, not one enlightens his
neighbour left behind; but shall I not long with agony for one breath
of thy air, and not receive it? shall I not be torn asunder with
dying?--I will question no more: Father, into thy hands I commend my
spirit. For it is thy business, not mine. Thou wilt know every shade of
my suffering; thou wilt care for me with thy perfect fatherhood; for
that makes my sonship, and inwraps and infolds it. As a child I could
bear great pain when my father was leaning over me, or had his arm
about me: how much nearer my soul cannot thy hands come!--yea, with a
comfort, father of me, that I have never yet even imagined; for how
shall my imagination overtake thy swift heart? I care not for the pain,
so long as my spirit is strong, and into thy hands I commend that
spirit. If thy love, which is better than life, receive it, then surely
thy tenderness will make it great."
Thus may the Human Being say with himself.
Think, brothers, think, sisters, we walk in the air of an eternal
fatherhood. Every uplifting of the heart is a looking up to The Father.
Graciousness and truth are around, above, beneath us, yea, _in_ us.
When we are least worthy, then, most tempted, hardest, unkindest, let
us yet commend our spirits into his hands. Whither else dare we send
them? How the earthly father would love a child who would creep into
his room with angry, troubled face, and sit down at his feet, saying
when asked what he wanted: "I feel so naughty, papa, and I want to get
good"! Would he say to his child: "How dare you! Go away, and be good,
and then come to me?" And shall we dare to think God would send us away
if we came thus, and would not be pleased that we came, even if we were
angry as Jonah? Would we not let all the tenderness of our nature flow
forth upon such a child? And shall we dare to think that if we being
evil know how to give good gifts to our children, God will not give us
his own spirit when we come to ask him? Will not some heavenly dew
descend cool upon the hot anger? some genial rain-drop on the dry
selfishness? some glance of sunlight on the cloudy hopelessness? Bread,
at least, will be given, and not a stone; water, at least, will be
sure, and not vinegar mingled with gall.
Nor is there anything we can ask for ourselves that we may not ask for
another. We may commend any brother, any sister, to the common
fatherhood. And there will be moments when, filled with that spirit
which is the Lord, nothing will ease our hearts of their love but the
commending of all men, all our brothers, all our sisters, to the one
Father. Nor shall we ever know that repose in the Father's hands, that
rest of the Holy Sepulchre, which the Lord knew when the agony of death
was over, when the storm of the world died away behind his retiring
spirit, and he entered the regions where there is only life, and
therefore all that is not music is silence, (for all noise comes of the
conflict of Life and Death)--we shall never be able, I say, to rest in
the bosom of the Father, till the fatherhood is fully revealed to us in
the love of the brothers. For he cannot be our father save as he is
their father; and if we do not see him and feel him as their father, we
cannot know him as ours. Never shall we know him aright until we
rejoice and exult for our race that he is _the_ Father. He that loveth
not his brother whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath not
seen? To rest, I say, at last, even in those hands into which the Lord
commended his spirit, we must have learned already to love our
neighbour as ourselves.