Famous Last Words

In May 1864 in the heat of the Civil War, Union General John Sedgwick unknowingly uttered his last words: “They couldn’t hit an elephant at this dist–” The last syllable was cut-off when he fell over dead, killed instantly by the bullet of a Confederate sharpshooter.

Last words are fascinating. Some, like the one above, are unintentionally humorous. However, the most interesting last words are those in which a person reveals his or her deepest values and beliefs. For examples, consider how each one of the following last words of noteworthy individuals communicates something about their life.

• “How were the receipts today at Madison Square Garden?” – Entertainment promoter, P. T. Barnum (1810-1891)
• “I’m bored with it all” – British politician, Winston Churchill before slipping into a coma and dying nine days later (1874-1965)
• “Das ist absurd! Das ist absurd!” Translation: “This is absurd! This is absurd!” – Austrian neurologist and psychologist, Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
• “Jesus, I love you. Jesus, I love you.” – Catholic nun and Nobel Peace Prize winner, Mother Teresa (1910-1997)

What will your last words be? What will they reveal about your life – your values, your beliefs? How would you summarize your life in the space afforded by dying gasps?

Jesus’ final words reflected the course of his entire life. These eight words were directed to God as a final witness of Jesus’ life and ministry: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” His words reveal his heart. As a witness of truth, they exercise an immediate influence on those listening. [1]

Jesus begins and ends the “seven words from the cross” with a prayer addressed to Abba. His first word was a prayer for others: “Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing.” This last word is a prayer of personal surrender: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” In his last words, Jesus dies as he lived by committing himself into the Father’s keeping. This was not a fluke; his entire life had prepared him for this. Jesus died well because he lived well.

In my years of ministry I have noticed one constant in regard to matters of life and death. With rare exception, people tend to die as they have lived. Very few people experience a radical conversion on their deathbed. Whether we like it or not, our character and habits are shaped by a seemingly endless series of small choices. These daily decisions gradually contribute to our identity. We slowly become the people we are, and the prospect of death rarely changes our perspective in drastic ways. (There are exceptions, but they are exactly that – exceptions. The rule above stands, and indeed is proved, by the exceptions.)

We die as we live. The challenge, therefore, is to live well in order to die well.[2] Though the Puritans could be strict in some areas, they understood this point well. They lived during a time when life was hard and short. People lived in close communities and thus regularly experienced the death of neighbors. Furthermore, there were no sanitized hospitals to protect people from facing the realities of death.

In this harsh environment, the Puritans were concerned not only with living well, but also dying well. They rightly understood that both a good life and a good death provide a witness of God. Just as the words we utter while vibrant and healthy can be a witness of God, our final words can also serve as a witness. Jesus’ last words completely reflect his life’s values and beliefs. His final words stand as a witness of God. And, not surprisingly, as a witness of glory, they have an immediate influence on those around the cross.

Out of the Darkness

Jesus’ final words arise from deep darkness – a personal, spiritual, and physical darkness. His personal darkness encompasses all the mental anguish, emotional turmoil, excruciating physical pain, and social humiliation that accompany crucifixion. The physical darkness surrounding the cross may refer to one or more of the following possibilities: (1) the spiritual powers of darkness which triumph during the crucifixion (Luke 22:53); (2) the judgment of God (cf. Joel 2:10; Amos 8:9; Zeph 1:15); or (3) creation’s involvement and witness to this tragic event. Commentator Fred Craddock suggests, “If stones cry out when disciples are silent (19:40), why would not the sky darken when the Son of God hangs dying?”[3]

With a loud voice, Jesus publicly declares his faith in God, even in the midst of the deepest darkness.

This Seventh Word is typically depicted as tranquil resignation at the end of the storm and the horror. I am not sure that is the right reading. We are told that it was uttered as a loud cry, which is not the mark of tranquility. I expect this cry is closer than we might think to “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That was the cry of desolation, and this Seventh Word is a cry of trust, hurled almost defiantly, into the absence of the One of whom Jesus spoke when he said, “Yet I am not alone, for the Father is with me.”[4]

These words did not come without a fight, but they did spring from the deepest part of Jesus. In harmony with his whole life, he now entrusts himself completely to God. This is not a new action, but a culmination and continuation of his course of life. Jesus completely surrenders to God’s will. Like a child to a parent, Jesus proves he is the obedient and faithful Son in an act of total trust and dependence. Simultaneously, he witnesses that God is a good and trustworthy Father. His situation hasn’t changed. No miraculous act of God saves the day. No mystical vision brings enlightenment. And yet, Jesus expresses the deepest trust in God’s care. He dies as he lived. He has lived for God’s will and now he places his life in God’s hands.

Jesus’ faith and obedience express the deepest truth at the heart of his life: he clearly understood that his life was in God’s hands.

“There is nothing here of anger or doubt or thrashing about in the throes of death. Rather, Luke writes of serenity, acceptance, and trust.”[5] Jesus last words compose a faithful, hopeful prayer of surrender into the loving hands of God. His resolute acceptance of death becomes his final act in the world that expressed his commitment to trust in the faithfulness of God.

The Fight of Faith

The last and most important fight of our lives is the fight of faith. Will we trust God when all hope is gone? When we face our final breath? When we lose control of everything we once enjoyed? When our will is pinned down and bound and there is absolutely nothing we can do for ourselves?

The scriptures never make light of death. Jesus’ prayer in Gethsemane reveals his experience of reluctance in the face of death. He accepted the Father’s will only after great struggle.

Jesus experienced the truth that no matter how great the darkness, God is there. At the cross, Jesus not only redeems us from sin’s curse, he also reveals for us a pattern for living… and dying: “The Christian life is lived in between — in between My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? And Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.” So in this last saying from the Cross, Luke is teaching us how to die and how to live.”[6]

When absolutely everything is out of his hands, Jesus must believe that absolutely everything is in God’s hands. Though he feels completely abandoned by God, he must completely abandon all into God’s hands. Now that he no longer has control, he must completely relinquish control to God.

Losing Control

Truth be told, we all fear losing control of our lives. Truth be told, very few of us like to freely admit how little control we actually have over much of our lives. Much of our experience of anxiety stems from “the idol of control” – our attempt to control every detail of our lives and manage the outcome for our own benefit.

Everything in the life of faith resolves down to one question: Is our life in our hands or in God’s hands? Are we learning to daily place our concerns, worries, sorrows, disappointments, trials, difficulties in God’s hands? (Philippians 4:6-7). Have we come to accept that even our very life is not our own – that we have been bought with a price? (1 Corinthians 6:19-20)

One common cliché goes like this: Want to make God laugh? Tell him your plans! It is easy for us to forget God. We work hard to plan out our lives. This is understandable – even wise. But we are foolish if we forget that our plans are not necessarily God’s plans. We need to be continually reminded of us. “Church is where we go to be reminded that the life we live is not our own.”[7] We are called to obey God’s will – to place God’s desires above our own, and allow God’s will to guide our will. We are called to follow Christ in discipleship and to be led by the Spirit in works of love. Obedience, discipleship, divine guidance – all these things take us out of ourselves and orient us to another, namely, the God who is good, trustworthy, and has our best interests at heart.

Our vocation as followers of Christ is to completely surrender to God’s will. Our problem is that we continue to harbor an illusion of control. And it takes a lot to lose the illusion:

One of the seductive constructs by which many of us live is that we in fact do have primary control over what happens. This illusion is fed by the reality that we have many more choices in our lives than do most of the world’s people. We are blessed with education that opens opportunity and creative discovery to us. We have the choices that are allowed by sufficient diet, mobility, and political freedom. We have choices regarding health, artistic expression, and academic freedom. Add to these significant choices, the millions of products from which we can select, from laundry soap to fashions to soda pop. It seems to us that we can choose our futures.

Until someone dies—a child, a friend, a famous philanthropist, a spouse. Then our sense of control vanishes; our lives are in disarray.[8]

It is not just the sudden loss of others that challenges our illusion but the gradual loss of ourselves. If we live long enough we will surely find this out.

If we are lucky enough to survive into old age, it will only be to find that even the most basic amenities of life will begin to be withdrawn from us one by one: legal freedoms, good health, friends, the comforts of our own home, physical and intellectual abilities, the capacity to think clearly, remember things, read a book, walk around the block, enjoy food, go to the bathroom. An old man is a ruined city, a fallen kingdom, a disaster area full of leaks and potholes and crumbling walls. In the end there may be nothing left to him but life itself, the faintest squiggle on a piece of graph paper, and even that may be unceremoniously flicked away like a speck of lint from the collar of the dashing young world.[9]

Ultimately, circumstances will force us to learn to abandon ourselves into the hands of God. However, this isn’t learned easily. It is to our advantage to gradually learn this discipline by “leaning into” this way of living. We die as we live.

Abandon yourself entirely to God. Recklessly abandon yourself to God as long as you breathe on this earth. Let loose. You are in good hands. You can be self-abandoned because you will never be God-abandoned.[10]

In the words of Brother Lawrence: “We must trust God and abandon ourselves to Him alone, for He would not deceive us.”

This kind of faith takes time to develop. If we wait until our final moments to nurture this kind of faith, we may end up like the man in the story below:

A man stumbles into a deep well and plummets a hundred feet before grasping a spindly root, stopping his fall. His grip grows weaker and weaker, and in his desperation he cries out, “Is there anybody up there?” He looks up, and all he can see is a circle of sky. Suddenly, the clouds part and a beam of bright light shines down on him. A deep voice thunders, “I, the Lord, am here. Let go of the root, and I will save you.” The man thinks for a moment and then yells, “Is there anybody else up there?”[11]

Spiritual Practices for Furthering Faith

Two practices may help us develop the kind of faith that can weather the darkest moments. The first is to pray the Lord’s Prayer, and to regularly reflect upon and take seriously the lines: “Thy kingdom come; Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” It is impossible to pray this without seeking to conform your life to God’s will. The prayer challenges us to put God’s kingdom and God’s will first. It calls us to trust God enough to believe God has our best interests at heart in the coming kingdom.

The second practice involves viewing the final moments of our day in a fresh way. Some have said that falling asleep is a “little death.” We completely let go and give ourselves over to unconsciousness. We do nothing intentionally to sustain or preserve our conscious lives. As we drift into sleep, one of our last waking words should be “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” Be doing this, we begin to practice entrusting ourselves to the divine other.[12] The Puritan Matthew Henry explains this succinctly: “Let the end of our day remind us of the end of all our days.”

The simple acts of beginning our day with the Lord’s Prayer and ending with Jesus’ prayer of faithful surrender will, over time, shape our souls to trust God more.

Live Well! Die Well!

With rare exception, we die as we lived. Our lives are the result of an endless amount of small decisions. Every decision forms and shapes us and prepares us to face our greatest challenge, the mystery of death. At death we face the ultimate eternal horizon. We encounter that which is ultimately beyond our control. At no point in our lives do our limitations seem so great.

What will our last words be? Will they witness of trust in God? Will they be the culmination of a life lived well – a life of faithful confidence in God’s care?  

Why is this important? It goes beyond our own lives and extends to others. We live well as a witness to the gospel of Jesus Christ. We die well for the same reasons. A “good death” like a “good life” reveals the grace and truth of God. In John’s Gospel, Jesus tells Peter that he will one day die by crucifixion. The author then comments: “Jesus said this to indicate the kind of death by which he would glorify God” (John 21:19). Through we don’t often understand death as a means by which to “glorify God,” the sacred writings hold out this possibility. Likewise, Stephen, the first martyr of the church, said while being stoned to death: “Lord Jesus, receive my spirit” (Acts 7:59). The impact of Stephen’s act of “dying well” is hard to overstate, for standing by at this event was Saul the persecutor, the one who would soon convert to the Christian faith and be renamed as Paul the Apostle of Jesus Christ.

Jesus died well because he lived well. His entire life was summarized in his final words: “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” May our lives be shaped by faith in such a way that we may pray likewise when we face the deep darkness of death. 

We can trust God with our most precious possession – our lives. Nothing good will ultimately be lost. God keeps everything of value. God even preserves every tear. When everything seems to be slipping away forever, we can rest confident that everything of value is safe in God’s care. For God holds our very lives in his hands. Therefore, we can boldly pray with confidence…

Father, I abandon myself into your hands;
do with me what you will.
Whatever you may do, I thank you:
I am ready for all, I accept all.
Let only your will be done in me,
and in all your creatures -
I wish no more than this, O Lord.
Into your hands I commend my soul:
I offer it to you with all the love of my heart,
for I love you, Lord, and so need to give myself,
to surrender myself into your hands without reserve,
and with boundless confidence,
for you are my Father. - Charles de Foucauld

© Richard J. Vincent, 2008