12-29-2015

Good Morning All!!   

        Luke 23:46; “Jesus cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.” After he said this, he died.”

    It is always fascinating to me how intertwined the story of Christmas and Easter are.  First you do not have one without the other.  If there was no Christmas, no birth of a Savior, there would be no death and resurrection and without the resurrection we have no Savior born.  Yet the two are so entwined that we can actually take portions from one story and see them in the other.  One of the readings for the First Sunday after Christmas speaks of Mary having her heart pierced because of Jesus’ effect on the people of Israel, an obvious reference to her sorrow when Jesus was crucified and she watched. 

    The verse for today shows us this again.  In this final cry, Jesus places his eternal post mortem existence into the hands of God the Father; but it truly goes far beyond that.  It speaks to the deliverance, promised by God, and it speaks to God’s faithfulness.  It speaks to the certainty of God the Father loving and caring for and sustaining the Son.  We see this in part of Jesus’ comments to Mary and Joseph in one of the reading for the Second Sunday after Christmas where Jesus speaks of “My Father’s house” and being “about the business of My Father.”  The close and intimate relationship between the Father and the Son is displayed in both accounts.

    With the coming of Jesus; with his life, death, resurrection and ascension; we are in this same intimate relationship with the Father.  We can confidently say “I entrust my spirit” to the Father.  We know that we are placing our trust and hope in the hands of a loving Father who cares for his children.  We are not placing our hope in an angry God or a mercurial God where our existence, present and future, is in doubt.  We know that our loving Father has plans to prosper us.  We know that in all things nothing can ever separate us form God’s love.

    So as we wait for the events of our life to unfold, we can confidently say, “Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.”  The results of the lab tests or surgery, we can entrust to our loving Father.  The struggling relationships with family and friends, we know that God will lead us to resolve the issues, oftentimes with changes we need to make.  As we age and wonder about tomorrow, we are entrusting all that we are and all that we have to our loving Father.  When we know that our loving Father is in control and that by entrusting our spirit to Him; we can know that we have God’s peace.

    It really is quite a trade, we entrust our spirit, our future, all our worries and troubles to God and he offers us peace, hope, comfort, joy and the certainty of life eternal.  Accept God’s trade, give him your worries, entrust your spirit to his loving arms and take his peace into your heart.

Father, into your hands I entrust my spirit.  Help me to live this statement.  Lead me to trust, strengthen my faith that I may always know your peace.  Be with those who do not know your grace and peace.  Guide them to trust you in all that the do.  In the precious name of Jesus we pray, amen.

God’s Peace,

Pastor Bret