The church that I have attended for many years has a special service on Good Friday each year. The service contains seven segments focused on the seven last words of Christ. Each segment includes a homily. Today, I delivered the last homily, which was based on the last words of Christ when he said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” The text of my homily is set forth below.
Have you ever contemplated your own death? Have you ever had a near-death experience? How will you respond when your death is imminent?
I have never had a serious illness, but I have had a few experiences where I feared—at least for a brief period of time—that my life was about to end. On one occasion, I was flying to New York with two other passengers in a small private airplane when we encountered a terrific thunderstorm. The winds were extremely strong, and lightning bolts were lighting up the night sky. The plane was bouncing all over the sky. It was flying sideways half of the time and losing altitude. One of the passengers on the plane was the chief executive officer of the company for which I was then working. He told the pilot to get us out of the storm and onto the ground—anywhere—as soon as possible. I was terrified. I prayed that God would allow me to survive. I prayed that God would give me strength. I prayed for my family.
Obviously, I survived this experience because I am here to tell my story. My experience, although frightening, does not compare with the experience of those who know they are going to die. My experience lasted about 30 or 40 minutes, and then it was over. I was too scared to think seriously about my own death. When it was all over and I knew I was safe, my thoughts quickly returned to the problems of the day.
Unlike my experience, Jesus knew he was going to die on the cross, and he had plenty of time to contemplate his death. Likewise, thousands of people at any given point in time are struggling with terminal illnesses, and they know their death is imminent. What can we learn from Jesus and from others who have faced or are facing death?
The last words of Jesus before his death were, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit.” In speaking these words, Jesus was repeating a verse from Psalms 31. The phrase that Jesus repeated was the prayer every Jewish mother taught her child to say the last thing at night. Dr. William Barclay writes that Jesus made the prayer more intimate by adding the word “Father” at the beginning, and he then died like a child falling asleep in his father’s arms. Of course, Jesus did not enjoy a quiet and peaceful death. He was crucified. He was tortured. He endured indescribable suffering. Despite his suffering, however, when he died, Jesus was at peace with himself, and he was at peace with God. He surrendered himself to God, and he entrusted his spirit to God.
Approximately one year ago, my brother-in-law, Ann’s brother Sam, was diagnosed with cancer. He died four months later. Ann and I observed Sam as he went though the various stages that are common to someone facing death. These stages included denial, fear, anger, self-pity, and resentment. In the last days before his death, however, Sam surrendered. He made peace with his death, and we could almost see the weight being lifted from his shoulders. Several days before he took his final breath, Sam was ready to commit himself to God.
I frequently listen to the Day1 radio broadcast on Sunday morning. Several weeks ago, Dr. Donovan Drake, the pastor of Trinity Avenue Presbyterian Church in Durham, North Carolina, told a story about a young woman in his church who was ten years removed from the youth group when she was diagnosed with cancer. Dr. Donovan said the woman once said to him, “I know how to live, but how do you die?” Dr. Donovan said he cannot remember his answer, but he remembers what the woman told him. On late evenings when she could not sleep from either pain or worry, the young woman and her mother would open a hymnal and sing hymns together. They would sing until they could see the future together.
Dr. Donovan concluded that you know how to die when you know what the future will bring. God! You know how to die when you know what the future will bring. Joy! You know how to die when you know what the future brings? Life.
In his book Mending the Heart, the late Dr. John Claypool compared death to birth. Life begins when a living sperm interacts with a fertile egg. For the first nine months, the new life is housed in the mother’s womb, surrounded by protective and nurturing walls. Then comes the moment of birth. From the standpoint of the newborn, the birth is like a death. The baby has been taken from a comfortable place where all has been provided and moved into a new world. According to Dr. Claypool, this pattern of dying to a smaller world so that we might be born into a larger world repeats itself as we make our way through life, and it continues at the point of death. We die to a smaller place so that we might move on to a greater place. Death, like birth, represents an exit from one form of life and an entrance into another form.
But what about those of us who are left behind? How do we deal with our grief? How do we deal with the loss of our loved ones?
Jesus committed his spirit to God, but his spirit also remains with us and in us. His teachings about how we should live have survived for more than 2,000 years. There can be no doubt that Jesus’ death did not extinguish his spirit because his spirit is alive and with us today.
During my lifetime, I have grieved over the deaths of many loved ones, including my grandparents, both of my parents, both of Ann’s parents, my brother, Ann’s brother, and several uncles and aunts. In each case, the spirit of the person who died has remained as an important part of my life. I remember and cherish each person’s love, character, personality, and sense of humor. My loved ones who have died have moved on to a new life with God, but their spirit remains with me, and I hope their spirit will be passed along through me to my children and grandchildren.
Earlier this week, I attended a prayer service for an elderly Jewish man who had died. The Rabbi who spoke said many people have a greater impact on the lives of others after they have died than they did when they were alive. The Rabbi talked about the character and integrity of the man who had died and said his soul and his spirit would continue to have a large influence on the lives of those who knew and loved him.
Two years ago, I stood in this same place on Good Friday and delivered a homily based on the words of Jesus when he said, “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?” I talked about how I felt abandoned by God following the death of my younger brother Mike, who committed suicide on February 15, 2001. It has now been a little more than eight years since Mike’s suicide. My grief remains strong, but my feeling of abandonment by God has been replaced by feelings of appreciation and gratitude for Mike’s life. Mike’s spirit is now with God, but it also remains with me.
I would like to refer again to John Claypool’s book Mending the Heart, which helped me make the transition from abandonment to gratitude after my brother’s death. In the book, Dr. Claypool wrote about the death of his daughter Laura Lue, who was diagnosed with leukemia at age 8 1/2. When Laura Lue later died at age 10, Dr. Claypool was devastated and went through a period of intense grief. After a while, he began to see Laura Lue’s life and death in a new perspective. His viewpoint changed when he came to the following conclusion, and I quote: “I had never deserved her for a single day. She was not a possession to which I was entitled, but a gift by which I had been utterly blessed.” Dr. Claypool went on to say he realized he had to make a choice. He wrote, “I could spend the rest of my life in anger and resentment because she had lived so short a time and so much of her promise had been cut short, or I could spend the rest of my life in gratitude that she had ever lived at all and that I had the wonder of those ten grace-filled years.”
Jesus was a gift from God to all of us. Jesus taught us how to live, but he also taught us how to die. Have you ever contemplated your own death? How will you respond when your death is imminent? God does not guarantee that our life will be free of trouble or that our death will be free of pain and suffering. We do have God’s assurance, however, that we will not be alone. God is with us always, even when we are suffering, and even when we are preparing to exit from one form of life and enter into a new life with Him. When my death is imminent, I pray that I will be able to commit my spirit to God and rest in the arms of God just as Jesus did. Amen.
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