Good Friday of the Lord’s Passion
R. Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.
Written by Shane Neyrey
When I see Our Lord upon the cross, I lose sight of the full picture of what is happening. I see a man who is beaten, broken, stripped, and drained of everything within Him. I witness the most vile and heinous act of injustice happening to He who is most unworthy of such treatment. I see an innocent victim of the cruelty of humanity. I see total vulnerability and, on the surface, powerlessness.
Without this beautiful dialogue between the Son and His Father, we may be tempted to end our reflection here: Christ, the victim, unjustly killed upon a tree. However, what we hear in this verse, “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit,” is not the anthem of a victim, but a victor. Christ knows what’s coming: the salvation of the world. What’s happening on the cross is not happening to Him. He is not the victim. You can’t nail God to a cross; where would you get the nails?
This leaves us with one logical conclusion: He wanted to be there. As the early church Fathers understood, Christ indeed is the aggressor. Christ is on the hunt to destroy sin and death. He is not being emptied of everything: He is giving himself over entirely. Notice the subtlety. What is happening on the cross is not happening to Him: it is happening because of Him. In His last words, He is not stripped of His life, He is completely given over.
Shane Neyrey is the team lead for FOCUS at LSU. You can follow him on Instagram.
Pray with today’s psalm.