Talk Given at a "7 Last Words" Service

Luke 23:46
And Jesus, crying out with a loud voice, said, "Father, into your hands I commend my spirit." Having said this, He breathed His last.

I want everyone to close their eyes for a moment… think about everything that you have going on; tests, relationships, papers, problems, hurts, wants, plans, failures…. Now…Let Go…. Just Let Go of everything in your life…
Not that easy is it? We spend our lives in perpetual worry and perpetual planning. We have a plan for tomorrow, for the week, for the next 5 years, for our entire lives. But where are we going? Does any one of us really know… consider what has brought you here tonight, the topsy turvy series of events that have brought you to this exact moment in time at this place however wayward you might be from home. It seems like just coincidence, But there is order amidst this chaos that is our lives and it is lying somewhere just beneath the surface, invisible to the ordinary eye. Chaos, yet there is a seemingly impossible coincidence that we are all here tonight sharing this moment. There is a simple answer for this, but one that is impossible to comprehend, the will of the Father.
In England, when you are getting off of the trains, the famous line that the London train conductors always say is “Mind the gap.” “Mind the Gap,” this is because the platforms run straight and the train tracks curve and wind, creating this ‘gap’ to mind while stepping off of the train. We can think of ourselves in this way, the curving of our lives winding in and out, sometimes coming in line with the platforms, sometimes not. But this phrase…”mind the gap…” how wide has the gap grown between God’s will and our own plans?
Where is our will taking us? Sometimes we think that we are bigger, faster, stronger, smarter, and talented enough to do things our own way. We make our plans, believe in our own strength and pride… and the gap widens. Even when we fail we chalk it up to our own failure or circumstances, constantly believing in our own power. But we will never succeed living our lives in this way. The book of Job says that “a man without God is trusting in a spider’s web, everything he counts on will collapse.” Yet we still separate ourselves and allow our own impulsive will to triumph.
We can even grow so far that we are no longer mindful of the rejection of God and the ever widening gap. Our lack of trust is astounding, that we actually can believe that we can do better than the one who endowed us with all we are. We don’t trust our Father, we lack the eyes to see that we are created with purpose and we lack the faith to trust in that purpose.
But how can we trust in what we cannot be sure of? How hard is it to give everything up? How impossible is it to seek and submit to the will of the father? To give your life totally to God’s plan? It’s difficult, but the roadmap to follow has already been written by someone who was fully human.
Jesus gave his last breath as an offering to the divine will of his Father. Yet this final word, his last act on this earth as the Jesus Christ he was wasn’t a revelation, it was an exclamation point. Everything in his life had led to that one moment; Jesus had always commended his spirit to the will of God. From Jerusalem as a child to his last moments at Golgotha, Jesus had dedicated his life fully to God’s plan for him. There is no secret, no magic formula, or instant grace for us to stand up and yell ‘FATHER INTO YOUR HANDS I COMMEND MY SPIRIT.’ We make the choice every minute of every day who we are going to be and what we are going to believe in. We will know by the turmoil or peace in our hearts if we are commending our spirits. We must live our lives commended as Christ did, the choices we make; what we do and fail to do; dictate your level of trust and surrender to what God calls you to be.
We must trust as Christ did, fully believing that God is constantly at work for our good if we love him. We need to build up this trust; we need to earn the trust and respect that God has given us. We must trust through doubts and fear, as Christ did at Gethsemane. We must rededicate ourselves every day no matter the circumstance, we must trust through our lives so that at our end we can use our final breath to commend ourselves for the final time.
Jesus Christ gave his last full measure of devotion to the will of God. Total trust, even in the face of torture, death, and uncertainty. Christ was human, he came to show us that we can do it. We have been shown the way by all those Saints who have come before us. Ultimately we must trust our God because he knows us, he knew us before we were, he knows what we are meant to be. We are called to live our lives for the fullness of the grace and gifts we have been given by our existence. To do this, we must trust in our God, commend our lives daily to him whatever the cost, and mind the gap between our plans and God’s. Trust in tomorrow, the sun will rise. Trust in hope, we will be saved. Trust in your Father, you will be rewarded. Let go, your path will be lit before you. Commend your spirit every moment, and you will find your purpose.