Preached for the Inter Church Council of North Quincy and Wollaston Good Friday Service Friday, April 2nd, 2021 "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Years (and years) ago, when I was a pre-teen in secondary education, my school would hold a morning assembly several times each week. At that time and in that place, this took the form of a worship service, in which we would sing hymns from our school hymn book and read together prayers from a little blue prayer book taped inside the hymnal. The headmaster frequently led us in a prayer that stays with me to this day. It begins “Into your hands, O God, I commend myself this day.” In my mind this was the perfect prayer to begin a school day. I could pour my pre-teen concerns into those few words: acne, friendships and cliques, the in-crowd and the out-crowd, romantic crushes, and of course the stresses of grades and homework. This was the prayer of my pre-teen self, who did not know what else to pray, and still wanted God to go with her through the school day. The gospel writer, Luke, presents Jesus primarily as faithful to God, his heavenly Father. Jesus is faithful his whole life long … born to a faithful mother, Mary, … and faithful as a child, in the temple, many years before our scene today. Jesus was faithful through the 40 days he spent being tempted wilderness, faithful in his calling to ministry to declare “good news to the poor.” And now he is faithful even in death, as he cries out “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit" and breathes his last breath. These are his last words of faith and trust. I am comforted by the thought that perhaps Jesus, also, learned these words as a child, not from a school prayer book, but from Israel’s song book. Jesus is reciting a verse from Psalm 31, a psalm Jesus might have used as a bedtime prayer throughout his life. The entire psalm expresses a deep faithfulness and trust in God: God as our protector, God as our redeemer, God as our refuge. Even though I take comfort from the thought that Jesus and I prayed very similar words as children, Jesus’ trust and faithfulness far exceed my faith. While I cling to the illusion of control, Jesus submits to what must be. He submits what is done to him by a world that would stamp out goodness and innocence. Over this past year of pandemic, we … children, adults, teens, pre-teens … have had much more to worry about than acne, friendships and homework. Children have had their world turned upside down by social isolation, the loss of loved ones, exhausted and anxious parents, online learning frequently without a stable internet or adult support. And many students who relied on school for support and guidance, structure or protection, have been lost in the chaos. Meanwhile, adults and children have gone through the pain of sickness and death, often alone, the stresses of overwhelming responsibilities in their work and family life. The pandemic has revealed much about what is broken in our world, but perhaps the greatest revelation is that our sense of control over our world is an illusion. While Jesus made the choice for faithfulness and trust, we are left with no choice but to trust in God. And so, may we pray together, as Jesus prayed: In times of pain and exhaustion, “into your hands O God.” In times of confession, “into your hands O God.” In times of anxiety, when we want to fall asleep but cant’, “into your hands O God.” In a time of overwhelming responsibility and confusion, “into your hands, O God.” It’s the prayer of a pre-teen who doesn’t know what else to pray. And it’s also the prayer of Jesus, who knows exactly what to pray … “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.”
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