It is the end. Jesus now prays, “Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” You may find it surprising: Jesus did not originate that prayer. In our Lord’s day, thousands prayed the same prayer every day. For it was the common bedtime prayer for the Jews of the first century.
Today, our bedtime prayer is this: “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord, my soul to keep. If I should die before I wake, I pray the Lord, my soul to take.” Jesus’ last words before He closes His eyes in death are those of a bedtime prayer: “Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” Those are His last words before falling asleep in death.
On the cross, Jesus entrusts His life, His death, everything to His Father. His prayer comes from Psalm 31. Jesus takes up the words of David. But they are His words, as well, brought into being by the Spirit of Christ in David. Here’s Psalm 31:
In You, O Lord, I take refuge; let me never be disgraced. Turn Your ear to me, come now to my rescue. Be my rock of refuge, a stronghold to save me. You are my rock and my fortress; because of Your name, You lead and guide me. Free me from the net they veiled to entrap me, for you are my strength. Into Your hands, I entrust my spirit. [Psalm 31:1-5a]
David, surrounded by his enemies, commits his life into the hand of God. Jesus, the sinless Son of David, hanging in the gloom with the burden of humanity’s sin, entrusts His life to His Father. In committing Himself into His Father’s hands, He entrusts us, as well. Jesus gathers us into His death, all so we would be gathered to Him in our death.
Death does not overcome Jesus. No, He overcomes death by dying. “O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?” (1 Corinthians 15:55). Jesus took the sting of death into Himself, the venom of the Law into His flesh. Now He cries out in victory and triumph as He commits His life to the Father.
Jesus addresses God as Father. They are words of affection and trust. Jesus now places Himself into His Father’s hands following His emptiness of abandonment. The judgment is complete. Jesus is completing His mission to the last, atoning for humanity’s sin. Christ commits Himself to the Father for final vindication through resurrection. In His dying breath, Jesus lays claim to being God’s Son—and the inheritance awaiting all who are sons of God in baptism (Galatians 5:26-27).
Our Lord’s mighty word of the cross cuts through our doubt and disbelief. Jesus, the second Adam, conquers death, which the first Adam unleashed into the world. Adam listened to the doubting word of the devil and became the offender, plunging the world into the chaos of sin. The Second Adam, however, remains faithful to His Father, unwavering even as He dies, His life in His Father’s hands.
With His final breath, Jesus shows Himself to be the faithful Son. Where we failed, our Lord succeeded. Where we sinned, He remained sinless. Where we doubt, Jesus stands fast.
Jesus now trusts the Father to receive His spirit. The hands of Christ are now weak and powerless, as He lives out the last of Him humbling Himself for our salvation. In mercy and might, those hands of His healed the sick. Our Lord touched the blind, the deaf, and the lepers—with His hands. He broke the bread and took the cup to grasp and give life to the dying and the dead. Now those powerful and saving hands are helpless in death.
That is all true—but more still awaits us from God. For even in the face of His Son’s death, our Father’s hands are still strong to save. At the start of it all, He used those hands to form man from the dust of the ground, and the woman from Adam’s side. God handcrafted us in His likeness and image.
“Is the hand of the Lord shortened?” (Numbers 11:23). God asked such a rhetorical question after He brought life into being from the throes of death: at Passover and the Exodus. Is the Lord’s hand too short to save? No! The psalms tell us: “You [O God] open Your hand and satisfy the needs of every living creature” (Psalm 145:16). God promises life and renewal in His ever-open hand. And so we pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord, my soul to keep.”
Like our Lord, we also place ourselves into our Father’s hands. We entrust ourselves to Him in all circumstances. Your cares and concerns are in His mighty hands. The problems you face in life—belonging to a broken and bent family, suffering poor health, facing temptations to sin—you can entrust to God. Like Jesus, as you die, you also can place yourself into God’s sheltering arms. And so we pray, “Now I lay me down to sleep; I pray the Lord, my soul to keep.”
“Father, into Your hands I commit my SPIRIT.” Jesus’ spirit now goes to be with the Father at the moment of death, before He even makes His victory proclamation in the bowels of Hell. Physical death involves a separation, a separation of the spirit (or soul) from the body.
After death, your physical body remains here, in the grave. But the spirit, the soul, leaves. With Jesus, it went to be with the Father. So also, with you—when you die with faith in Christ. Your soul delights in God’s full and glorious presence in eternity, awaiting the body’s resurrection.
Jesus offers His bedtime prayer—the final bedtime prayer before His last sleep. Even while dying, powerless and weak, our Lord is still mighty to save. For even while the day still turned dark, the curtain of the Temple tore in two. Jesus’ death didn’t open it, only for the curtain to close again. No, it tore it in two—now obsolete!
In His death, in the dying of God’s Son, death is now defeated! The funeral pall, the curtain of our mortality, is closed no more. For behold, the hands of God carried out their saving work in Jesus, for us, for you! In the Father’s hands you, too, are safe.
“Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” Earlier, our Lord’s prayer to the Father ascended, asking Him to forgive. Now, He asks the Father to reach down to receive Him. The one, who promised the dying thief Paradise will soon enter it Himself, in His spirit, His soul. Our Lord told His mother and disciple, John, to look, providing a place for His mother with His beloved disciple. Now, He goes home, to the Father’s house in heaven.
Jesus endured betrayal by others, even His Father’s abandonment. But now, like the prodigal son of His parable, He finds the Father’s hands wide open to receive and welcome Him back. Dying on the cross, Jesus cried out, “I thirst.” Now, He will reign forever where “Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst” (Revelation 7:16). Jesus, who gasped, “It is finished,” now finds for Himself—and us—life unending.
“Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” Remember those words when the time arrives for your last words. Make them your own. Hold the cross of Jesus before your closing eyes, and rest in Him. For in the victory of His death, Jesus took into Himself your eternal death, giving you eternal life.
Our Lord opened His hands to the nails. He opened them in love, for all your needs of body and spirit. Now, Jesus finds other hands, strong to save, the hands of His eternal Father. “Father, into Your hands I entrust my spirit.” In Christ, our Lord’s prayer is also true for you. Amen.
