The Sixth Word from the Cross: "Father"

Taken at Speed Museum, Louisville, KY / RL

The long dark day was almost over. And those standing there knew it would not be long for those on the cross. And they kept looking up as much as they could stand. But more they heard Jesus sixth word from the cross. An old man in the back nudged his neighbor. “What did he say—I couldn’t make it out.” “His friend said, ‘Father into thy hands I commend my spirit.” And the old man said, “Oh”.  

And even after these years and after all the crosses and all the pain and all the hopelessness and the cancers and the suicides—the words remain. I think the church kept these words and wrote them down because they spoke to them and to all the loved ones and friends they had too. 

If Jesus could say: “Father into your hands I commend my spirit”—maybe these are words for us too. For everyone of us the tracks will just run out.  And there isn’t really nothing to say but “Father.” 

Jesus himself told a Father story years before. A boy left home in a huff, He had had enough of that boring place and all the work not to speak of the orders. He wanted his freedom and so his father, sad and brokenhearted let him go. The Father had no idea where he was. Occasionally someone passing through would tell him bits and pieces of where the boy might be. But it was all just garbled—those words. The Father had let him go and not let him go. For day after day the old man stood on his porch peering down the road. But one day the Father saw someone who looked like his son, but he wasn’t sure. But as the figure moved closer the father knew. So the Father ran down the road—he couldn’t hold back the joy or the tears. “My son…my son! The boy couldn’t look his father in the face but he mumbled out his confession—or tried to. But the old man stopped him. He never let him finish. He put his arms around the boy and he kept saying: “My son, it doesn’t matter. You are here and we love you and we’ll get you some decent clothes and a basin of water for your dirty feet and some sandles. Whatever you need—you will find it here at home." But the boy tried to confess yet again. The Father shook his head."You’re back and we love you." 

Did Jesus remember there toward the end his own story that he had told. For it really was about the end of the road and a Father that took him back. Into the Father’s hands Jesus gave himself. There was nothing left to say.  And those who heard the words or read them through the years must have thought, maybe the Father who spoke when the Lord was baptized saying, “You are my beloved” had followed him all the way. Even those dark times when Jesus wondered. But always he kept going back to that lone word: “Father.” Over and over Jesus had said this word. Butr later in the Garden when Jesus knew the soldiers might come and that might be the end—he prayed: “Father.” So—at the end of his road he said ithose words for the last time: “Father I commend my spirit to your hands.”

You see the Father is there always especially on those days when we doubt it or rail out or just fear, he is still here.  Outstretched loving hands, holding us, loving us—helping us home.  

But what about the stuff they/we have done? What about all the sins of them/us? What about the times when they/us have been ashamed. No judgment in this story. No hell in this story—just “Eternal Father, strong to save… O hear us when we cry to Thee for those in peril on the sea.” Which I do believe includes us all.

Carlyle Marney told this Father-story which comes from the book, Les Miserables.  It is the tale of little Cosette, sad and lonely.

It is for my friend so close to the end this day. And that family who lost their Daddy and cannot even get together to grieve in this weary time. And it also a word for those everywhere who know well the perils of the sea during this terrible pandemic. 

The story begins: Cosette is alone and in the dark that she so dreaded. She strained at the bucket that she was forced to carry. She was quite unaware of the event that would change her life forever. 

“She had only one thought, to fly; too fly with all her might, across woods, across fields, to houses, to windows, to lighted candles. Her eyes fell upon the bucket…She grasped the handle with both hands. She could hardly lift the bucket.

She went a dozen steps in this manner, but the bucket was full, it was heavy, she was compelled to rest it on the ground…She walked bending forward head down, like an old woman: the weight of the bucket strained and stiffened her arms.

                                  .                     .               .               .                  .

Arriving near an old chestnut tree which she knew…,the poor little despairing thing could not help crying: ‘Oh! my God! my God!’

At that moment she felt all at once that the weight of the bucket was gone. A hand, which seemed enormous to her, had just caught the handle, and was carrying it easily. She raised her head. A large dark form, straight and erect, was walking beside her in the gloom. It was a man who had come up behind her and whom she had not heard. This man, without saying a word, had grasped the handle of the bucket she was carrying.

                          .                      .                     .                   .                     .

There are instincts for all the crises of life. The child was not afraid.”*

Later, Victor Hugo writes, the child learned to call him father and knew him by no other name.

Is it any wonder that there, toward the end when it was almost over—he said the word he had been using all his life. “Father…into thy hands I commend my spirit.” 

Let us use these words too.

photo by Oskar Seljeskoq / flikr

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com