4.7.23 Psalm 31:5
5 Into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O LORD, the God of truth.
The Crossword of Death: Take a Good Look at It
Today we come here to watch Jesus die. We planned our songs and our worship around it, carrying the cross through the church. Looking at it. Contemplating it.
Is this a healthy thing to do? There was an old TV show called 1,000 Ways to Die in which they chronicled a wide variety of ways that people have died throughout the years. Serial killers become attracted to death. It turns them on. It’s disgusting. You now see in Sweden, Canada and the United States the “right to die” movement, for people to “die with dignity” by killing themselves and giving up on life when it gets too hard. There’s nothing dignified about seeing a teenager kill himself because he’s depressed, just because a doctor says it’s ok.
Even within Christianity death can become an odd obsession. In the early Christian Church people were voluntarily giving themselves up to the authorities so that they would be martyred. In the Middle Ages death was glorified, so that young children went into Crusades in hopes of dying so they could bypass purgatory. In Mexico there is a group of people within a subculture of Catholicism who worship Santa Muerte, otherwise known as Saint Death. They bring offerings to a shrine with pictures of the Grim Reaper on it. That’s not right.
Good Friday is not a time for popcorn. If you’ve ever watched someone die in person it isn’t a pretty thing. Usually it has been after a prolonged illness, where the breathing slows and the heart finally gives out. The person is typically on morphine and doesn’t seem to be aware of what is going on, silently going into the night. That’s not the case here. It’s much more ugly than that. Jesus has no morphine. He’s young. There’s extreme pain and suffering, both physically and spiritually. He can’t even breathe without suffering excruciating pain. We don’t look at this because we enjoy it. It’s an ugly scene, but we do it because we NEED it. Without this death we die eternally, we end up in hell. We have to look at it.
Woody Allen once said, “I'm not afraid to die, I just don't want to be there when it happens.” Funny as that may be, we can’t joke our way out of it. It’s a reality of living in a fallen world. Like it or not, Good Friday focuses us on death.
What good does it do? In the Old Testament God called for rebellious and stubborn sons to be stoned at the city gate when they wouldn’t respond to discipline in Deuteronomy 21:19–21. The reason he stated was so that, “All Israel will hear of it and be afraid.” In this case the public stoning of a rebellious young man was meant to send shock waves through Israel as a WARNING to all who saw it happen. In another shocking moment a man’s concubine was sexually assaulted to death. The man took her body and chopped it into 12 pieces and sent it throughout all Israel. He wanted them all to be shocked at what happened when they got the body part in the mail. There’s a reason why abortion videos and pictures of aborted babies are made public - so people can see the murder for what it is. It’s more than just a choice. It’s the mutilation and ripping apart of babies in the womb. That’s sometimes why death is publicized - not to rejoice in it, but as a warning and a wake up call. The public execution of criminals on the cross was meant to be used by the Romans as a warning to any insurrectionists and criminals. “Don’t mess with us or you will suffer and die.”
So what’s the message of Good Friday? When Jesus goes on the cross, the message is sent to all of us. It shows us how evil humanity is, to kill the only perfect human to live since the Fall, to want to kill the One who created us. How wicked could we be?!? It also shows us how much God hates sin, to put His only Son through such suffering and abandonment on the cross. God takes sin seriously. The wages of sin IS DEATH. He doesn’t excuse it or laugh about it. It must be punished. If you doubt this, look again to the cross. Sin is serious business. It deserves death and abandonment - it deserves hell.
Death also has a way of revealing what’s on the inside. Back in 2005 Sean Penn starred in a movie called “Dead Man Walking.” He was convicted of murdering two young teens, but blamed it all on the man who was with him. He was a hardened man with a troubled background. Susan Sarandon played a nun who tried to work with him and get him off of death row. In the process, she realized he was not being completely honest about his role in the murders. Finally, when his sentence was not commuted and death was imminent, he had his “come to Jesus” moment. It took an impending death and the dedicated work of a nun to make him finally come clean in the role he played.
When the Romans put people to death they WANTED them to crack. They wanted the criminals to whimper and ask for mercy in order to break the spirit of anyone else who thought they’d stand firm in the face of persecution and death. The Jews wanted any followers of Jesus to see what a pretend king He was, how futile it was to believe in any type of Messiah they might have put their trust in. If Jesus cracked, then maybe they would lose their faith in Him.
But what did this terrible suffering and death reveal in Jesus? It revealed His love, His beauty, and His truth. He didn’t take this death lightly. He knew how serious it would be to go through hell on behalf of humanity. So He sweats drops of blood in the Garden. He reveals His heart to God in prayer. “If it’s possible, take this cup from me.” But He then shows His strong resolution to do what needs to be done. “Rise, let us go, here comes my betrayer.” He is NO coward, that’s for sure. He is not angry over getting sentenced to death and hell on behalf of humanity. He doesn’t blame Judas or the Roman government. He is destined to go there. He knew His higher purpose. And once He gets to the cross? Could you see any more compassion and genuine love? Here He had people mocking Him and making fun of Him, taunting to come down from the cross. What does He say? “Father, forgive them.” Here He was suffering an awful death, being taunted by another man who was getting what he deserved on the cross. And what does Jesus do for him? He converts Him and gives Him salvation. “Today will be with me in Paradise!” And what was the purpose in all this dying? To lovingly pay the price that we owed God, to redeem us from God’s wrath. “It is finished.” He died to finish the job of redemption for the entire world. Death brings out the pure beauty in Jesus.
Finally, this leads to His final statement. The words of Psalm 31:5, our text for tonight. Into your hands I commit my spirit. These are the words of confidence and faith. Jesus isn’t desperate. He doesn’t beg. He knew that He had done everything that was necessary to pay for our sins as the Father abandoned the Son on the cross. The only thing left was to conquer death and have His soul be separated from His body. There was no more reason to linger on. He had done His duty. It was time to go. So He turned to the Father, the One who had just abandoned Him, and trusted that the Father would receive His sacrifice, grab Jesus in His hand, and that Jesus would ascend to heaven, raising His own body from the dead three days later. He gave up His spirit of His own accord and died confidently. He met death head on, and He had full faith that He would come out alive. His death, in the midst of all of the ugliness, was beautiful.
The Holy Spirit reveals Jesus' death to us so that we can face death confidently also. When we were baptized, God looked at us as if we were crucified with Jesus. God already punished us and made us suffer when He made Jesus suffer. We don’t have to fear some lingering retribution waiting for us on Judgment Day. We stay connected to Christ and covered with Christ as we listen to His Word and receive the Lord’s Supper. We don’t have to be afraid of death, because Jesus already conquered it for us. We don’t have to worry about going to hell, because Jesus already went through hell for us.
So this changes how we live HERE and NOW too. We don’t have to be that afraid of death if Jesus already conquered it. We don’t have to live constantly fearing the break in or the car accident or the next sickness or disease. We can live a more bold life, knowing that eternal life is ahead of us. If God accepted Jesus’ sacrifice, then God will accept me too. Why would we worry about it if death only transfers our souls to heaven? Think of what we sing in the hymn, “All Praise to Thee, My God, This Night.” The lyrics go,
Teach me to live, that I may dread the grave as little as my bed.
Teach me to die, that so I may rise glorious at the judgment day.
Yet that doesn’t mean that we should live as if we had a death wish. Every day is a day of God’s grace. We are looking forward to heaven, but we also recognize that God created us to live in the here and the now too. We don’t have to be afraid of death, but we don’t have to seek it either.
What is a dignified death in the eyes of God? It is humbly and boldly clinging to Christ in the midst of your life, even if it brings suffering and dying. It’s leaving your final breath in God’s hands, not yours. When Karen Martens was unable to communicate for months due to her Alzheimer’s, it was hard to see what God’s purpose for her was. It would be easy just to pray for God to take her. But God still loved her. Her family still loved her. They were still able to visit her and see her. I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her or her family. God knew what He was doing. He took her home when He wanted her, in His timing. Life isn’t always about what is practical and easy, not in a fallen world. If God creates life, and if Jesus died to give us life, then we owe it to God to respect life too and make the most with whatever we have or don’t have.
Think about it this way. Sometimes when we are taking a trip, we become so focused on getting to our destination. We drive too long. Don’t take enough breaks. Don’t stop at some scenic bypasses that we could, and we miss a part of what could have been a beautiful part of the journey. I see people do that with old age too. They look so forward to retiring, but then they don’t know what they’re going to actually do when they retire. So they lose their purpose in life, and they become a sort of living dead person. They become so miserable with the emptiness of life that all they think about is death. That’s not a healthy focus either.
As long as you are alive, God has a purpose for you. Yes, life is more of a struggle for some. Yes, as you grow older, you have to fight harder to get your clothes on and get from point A to point B. You have to work hard to keep from becoming cynical and angry. Keep on fighting to the point of death! As Warren Zevon sang, you can sleep when you’re dead. You are here for a reason, and sometimes only God knows what it is. Trust Him to know when the right time is to take you. Even if you can hardly do anything but breathe, you can still pray. You can still give testimony of your faith through your suffering. You can still fight against your own temptations of despair. You can still fight for your faith by staying in the Word as death draws near.
5 Into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O LORD, the God of truth.
Sooner or later, the day of your death will be obvious and imminent if you live long enough. What a beautiful prayer you can pray! Jesus didn’t have to pray the last part of this verse, and He didn’t, because He didn’t need to be redeemed. He was the redemption and is the redemption. However, since Jesus faced death, we can pray this complete verse in confidence. We are redeemed and paid for by Jesus. We have nothing to fear. When death becomes obviously imminent, we can accept it. We can die in peace.
I like to use this verse when I’m having one of my final devotions with those who are getting close to death. Professor Deutschlander taught me to ask, “Are you ready to go see Jesus?” That usually brings about the finality of it all. Maybe there is a sin still bothering them. Maybe a lingering guilt. What can I do? Point them back to Jesus. He died for a reason, to redeem us, to pay for our sin, so that we can die in peace.
Today, this Good Friday, is a day to look at Jesus die. We cringe and we glimpse at the same time. We can’t help it. We must. When the darkness comes, we recognize what an awful thing we did to Jesus. But when Jesus speaks, we know what a beautiful thing He did for us. He died boldly and confidently for the sins of the world, the most dignified death of all. So how do we die with dignity? By clinging to Jesus, in suffering and pain, trusting that our sins are forgiven, that we are redeemed, trusting that God’s time is best, knowing that through His death we have life, for we are in Jesus’ hands. Into your hands I commit my spirit. You have redeemed me, O LORD, the God of truth. Amen.
