Jesus’ final words were “Father, into your hands I commend my spirit.” After a tough life, after living on the road and relying on the hospitality of others, after the constant demands of the crowds, after countless debates with his critics, after being abandoned and betrayed by his closest followers, after being subject to a sham trial, after being tortured and brought to the point of death, Jesus finally stopped fighting. He gave his life back to God.
When do you stop fighting? For life is surely a fight. We fight to advance our careers. We fight to protect and provide for our families. We fight to make a difference in the world. We don’t want to be passive people. We are meant to fight. But at some point you stop.
We learn in this life that we can’t fight everything, everywhere, all the time. There are some things beyond our power. We can’t know everything. We can’t control everything. We can’t fix every problem. If we tried, we would find that things would work out different than we think. We likely would do more harm than good. So at some point we stop fighting. At some point we say, “Let go and let God.” At some point we say, “Not my will but thy will be done.” When we do, we discover that God is good and we can trust him. We find we can give up the fight and give our life back to God.
This Sunday in worship we will be looking at the last words of Jesus, and we will be thinking about what it would mean for us to stop fighting everything and surrender to God’s will.