Father Christopher Zugger

 Matthew / Mark “He cried again with a loud voice/ scream and gave up his spirit.”

Luke 23: 46  Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, "Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!"  -- and the centurion said: This man was innocent, and the crowd went away, people beating their breasts" (a traditional sign of sorrow and penance).

John 19:30 “Jesus had received the (vinegary) wine, and he said,  “It is finished”; and he bowed his head and gave up  his spirit. A better translation for this word is this: IT IS FULFILLED./ accomplished/ consummated.

Now – He breathes his last —- what does he breathe out? SPIRIT – the first breathing of the Holy Spirit to the church is this last sigh out of Jesus’ exhausted lungs, to those standing below, to the beloved disciple, to the mother of the Lord, to the small faithful band of disciples.

INTO THY HANDS I commend my spirit shows us that Jesus knows that He was never ever abandoned by God the Father, despite the great loneliness He felt on the Cross earlier. There is a theology of abandonment that is popularly preached today in Protestant churches and among many Roman Catholics: that Jesus looks over the holy city, under the darkened sky, with the wind howling around him, and that he despaired. That is NOT the tradition of the ancient Church. Rather, that Jesus spoke the opening words of the messianic psalm 22, a  psalm which indeed lists aspects of the passion itself, and ends with the messiah’s triumph.

Preachers take the opening verse and use it to say Jesus understands us in our abandonment, he felt abandoned on the Cross. No, he was abandoned when Judas kissed him and all in the garden when all fled; when Peter refused to acknowledge Him in the courtyard of the high priest and then Jesus looked right at him, and Peter went out to weep — but not to stand next to Jesus. And after Jesus said that verse from Psalm 22 on the Cross, the earth quaked, rocks split, and the inner curtain of the temple was torn from top to bottom – by the hand of God the Father Who like His Jewish children tears his garments in grief – so did God at the pain of His Son, but the necessary pain which must be fulfilled and so God answered that prayer.

Jesus does not die to appease an angry God nor is he the object of divine anger. He is the recapitulation, the anakephaliosis of the human nature which all share. Thus, in Psalm 22 it is the voice of fallen human nature, but not a cry of despair. With the tearing of the veil, Jesus’ sacrifice is accepted.

And here – Jesus does not feel abandoned whatsoever. He instead says two things – it is finished – into THINE hands – the intimacy with the Father is still present – Now he bows his head – why? Out of exhaustion/ despair/ willing suffocation? NO, watch the motion! He gives of himself to those below, to his mother, St John, the other women, witnesses in the crowd. His head goes in a downward direction: He breathes his last onto them.

John 19 verse 34: “One of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once/ immediately there poured forth blood and water.” 

The blood and water: John sees it is a miracle. After all the suffering of Jesus, how could there be anything left in Him? It is not dribbling, it is not serum from the lungs. The spear tore through the Body of Jesus, and likely pierced the pericardium of the heart, which is filled with water. But this is not about an anatomy lesson. It is about the Son of God giving in death, as foretold by the Prophets, from His wound that the icons always show in the right side, which fulfills Ezekiel’s prophecy and also shows us the brutality of that spear’s piercing through that sacred body to the sacred heart of Christ Himself.

Zechariah 14:8 On that day living water will flow out from Jerusalem

Ezekiel 47:1-2: water is coming forth from under the threshold of the temple eastward, for the front of the temple [is] eastward, and the water is coming down from beneath, from the right side, from the south of the altar.

The water is coming out of Jesus’s right side: He is the new Temple. In the First Letter of John we read: ⁶This is the one who came by water and blood—Jesus Christ. He did not come by water only, but by water and blood. And it is the Spirit who testifies, because the Spirit is the truth. ⁷For there are three that testify: ⁸the Spirit, the water and the blood; and the three are in agreement.

Here, John says that the water and blood gush, pour out. In one of the legends, it says that the centurion Cornelius was blind in one eye but the pouring water hits that eye with force and he is cured. It gushes from that dead sacred body – a sign of fulfillment of running water; the  water equals Baptism; blood equals the Eucharist; his breathing of the spirit equals Chrismation / Confirmation – the traditional order of the three sacraments of initiation still preserved in all Eastern Churches and in the rite for adult converts in the Roman Church.

 He has brought everything to fulfillment, to completion – and now? Here? Now it is up to each of us, for whom he suffered willingly, out of love that we just are beginning to understand, he has given each soul since the crucifixion life – and we must complete our lives.

He gave everything in the end to the Father – the father now is the mother. Jesus compared God to a mother hen, longing to gather the chicks of doomed Jerusalem under her wings. Now he puts himself into the hands of the Father – gentle loving motherly hands which receive his soul and a loving father who kisses away the tears and soothes the exhaustion of the human Jesus.

So, to the completion of our lives. We must embrace the cross. He was pierced for us. He pours out water and blood for us. He accepted all of this willingly, he entered the passion in full command of himself, and so in his death he is giving life. Jesus is the new human, the original human without sin. His innocent death is sacrificial and therefore saving. Death cannot hold this human nature any longer, thus the resurrection. We are in Adam thru human nature but we are in Christ thru Baptism and thus share in this renewed human nature of Jesus.

When we come to the end of our own lives, may we have the faith and trust to say into the darkness: Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit. And may we remember that Jesus, who suffered all this willingly, suffered it just for me – and so will be close at hand at that moment. Let us live as ones whose souls are loved passionately by God, and let us love others in fulfillment of the one commandment that Jesus gave to his disciples.

Let us give Him love, and not count the cost. Let us love others, and not count the cost. Let us work in the power of the Suffering and Risen Lord, through the working of the Holy Spirit, to transform this broken world into His Kingdom. Let us not flee from our cross, but embrace it, and realize this is the truth: Ave Crux, spes unica! Hail O Cross, only hope!