Good Friday Sermon: Entrusting My Life

I preached this sermon for a Seven Last Words service two years ago when I was pregnant for a third time. I spent all week worried sick that I had miscarried again, but I had just found out that the baby, who would become our only living child, was well and I had “graduated” to a regular OBGYN instead of a specialist. To preach on trust after feeling so sick that week seemed impossible. But this is what I preached.

Scripture: Luke 23:44-49 (NRSV)

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, while the sun’s light failed; and the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” Having said this, he breathed his last. When the centurion saw what had taken place, he praised God and said, “Certainly this man was innocent.” And when all the crowds who had gathered there for this spectacle saw what had taken place, they returned home, beating their breasts. But all his acquaintances, including the women who had followed him from Galilee, stood at a distance, watching these things.

Sermon:

Let us pray:

Even from the cross you are our patient teacher. You turn to scripture when words fail. On this night, when words fail us, may the whispers of all our hearts and the words of my mouth proclaim your love for us, declaring in the words of the Psalmist that, indeed, you are faithful! Amen.

When I asked Rev. Groover for the last word tonight, I forgot which word was the last. I saw him at a meeting earlier this week. I don’t want this word, I told him. He was kind and didn’t tell me maybe the Holy Spirit was trying to teach me a thing or two.

You see, we read this passage in church on Sunday from the Common English Bible, and in that translation, Jesus cries out not, into your hands I commend my spirit, but, “Father, into your hands I entrust my life.” Those words have haunted me all week. The image I had of Jesus entrusting, giving responsibility for, his precious life over to God is a peaceful and intimate one in the midst of such brutality. Just as throughout the Gospel of Luke, Jesus’ trust in God cannot be shaken, even when everything has gone wrong. He does not let suffering have the last word--- for him, faithfulness is the last word.

I know a thing or two about trust. Recently, I shared a story of how trusting I am with my congregation, and it is a story I think of often because my spiritual director reminds me of it all the time:

A few autumns ago, I went flying with my husband Aaron, who is a pilot. Aaron is an all around aviation nerd, and he borrowed a friend’s plane for a leaf-peeking flight on probably the last possible day we could still go see any leaves. We borrowed his friend’s airplane after he finished up with some private pilot students. It was getting late, but that was good because the sun had just the right golden light for a perfect autumn day. Except. When we took off, we couldn’t get enough airspeed and had to abort the takeoff.

This is why people are terrified of flying. When I told my spiritual director this story, she felt panic well up within her. But I was totally fine, just taking pictures of the sunlight through the trees. We taxied back up the runway and tried again. This time we got off the ground but only just. The plane felt like it was wheezing. It was doing what it was supposed to be doing, but it was not doing it well. Like when you hit the gas going up the hill in a small-engine car. Your car doesn’t roll backwards, but it doesn’t feel like it has much forward momentum either.

Meanwhile, I was still looking out the window, taking pictures. Selfies, mostly, with my mouth open in a ridiculous excited pose. Aaron was in the background with his brow furrowed and focused on flying. When I told my spiritual director this part of the story, her eyes were huge, and she kept shaking her head and saying in not so much words but body language that she thought we were (or I was) crazy.

But I was never worried. I knew it was not good for a plane to be unable to take off and then, when it did, for it to be so sluggish about it. But I trusted my pilot. I was confident in his abilities, even though I knew that there are plenty of things that can happen when flying that would cause even the most perfect pilot to crash. My faith in Aaron wasn’t a belief that we would never crash. It was just that I knew Aaron would do all that he could to get us back to the ground if it were possible at all. And if we did crash, then I was with the person I loved doing what we loved.

I told my spiritual director all of this. And when I came to the end of the story--- a safe, easy landing back at the airport--- she leaned in and looked at me.

“Shannon,” she said, “why don’t you trust God like that?”

When I say I know something about a deep trust, a trust that brings calm in the storms of life, unfortunately I am not always talking about God. It isn’t that I don’t trust God or don’t believe in God, it’s just that rather than focusing on God’s constant redemptive presence in my life, I wonder about all those things God didn’t do. We have promises in scripture, see. We have stories of the impossible happening on the regular. I saw a meme just this week with the reminder:

If God could close the lions' mouths for Daniel, part the red sea for Moses, make the sun stand still for Joshua, open the prison for Peter, put a baby in Sarah's arms, and raise Lazarus from the dead, then God can certainly take care of you. Have faith.

Have faith, the meme declared. Entrust your life to God. Only good things will happen, right? Only I preached on Lazarus being raised from the dead one Sunday while a woman sat in the congregation sobbing because God didn’t raise her son when he died of an overdose just the week before. Only I myself have prayed to be remembered like Sarah but instead of a baby I had three miscarriages. Only you might have prayed for healing for a loved one, knowing our God can do the impossible, trusting God will do the impossible, and instead, your loved one withered away.

Have faith, we tell ourselves and others. Trust that God will take care of you, even when you have seen when God does not.

That isn’t the trust Jesus is talking about when he entrusts his life, commends his spirit, into God’s hands. Jesus was on a cross. An instrument of torture and terror. But terror is not the last word. Faith is. Jesus in the Gospel of Luke knows that God is with him. In the Gospels of Mark and Matthew, we might see a side of him that feels abandonment, but we don’t here in the Gospel of Luke. We see only trust. Trust that God is still there. That even in the midst of a crash of suffering and death, Jesus was surrounded by the love of God.

None of the gospels tell us that Jesus didn’t feel his suffering. We might think so when we read John, we might even think so reading this word from Jesus. But I think if we read Jesus entrusting his life in his last breath without understanding how he felt suffering then we miss how Jesus teaches us--- teaches me!--- in this moment. Jesus teaches us that even in the midst of pain and suffering, even when everything goes wrong and you can’t imagine how such awful ugliness can be redeemed, we can entrust our spirits not just at the end of our lives but throughout our whole lives to God. Even if it looks like the plane is going to crash and there’s nothing we can do. Even if it looks like the miracles illuminated in scripture are not evident in our own lives. Even when we have loved and kept on loving and the fear of the world overwhelmed us anyway. Even then, we can entrust our lives to God, knowing that we are with the one who loves us.

And my friends, that love has the last word.