“Jesus called out with a loud voice, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.'” (Luke 23:46)

God understands devastating grief as His only Son, Jesus, called to Him while dying on the cross, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit”. God was Father before Jesus’ earthly birth and remained Father when Jesus released His final breath. God continued as Father when the still body of His Son was laid in a tomb. God lives on today as Father of a risen Son who brings every parent the hope that a child can live again.

What do you call a heavenly Father who sacrifices His Son for the universe? For you and for me? Father. Still, Father. When there are no words in the glossary of grief to describe the pain of loss, God is our Father and calls us His children.

Daily Questions

1. How does it shape your heart to realize that God remains your Father and calls you His child, always?
2. How might this thought comfort you?

Daily Thoughts

Dear heavenly Father, thank You for being our Father and claiming me as Your children.

Luke 23: 44-46

It was now about noon, and darkness came over the whole land until three in the afternoon, for the sun stopped shining. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two. Jesus called out with a loud voice, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.” When he had said this, he breathed his last.

Bonus Information

Jesus uttered seven sayings from the cross, which were directed both horizontally and vertically. The horizontal statements were addressed to the people at the cross, including His words of comfort to His mother and His words of assurance to the dying thief. At least four of the sayings were vertical in nature, serving as prayers. Jesus prayed for mercy for His killers , expressed His sense of personal abandonment by the Father, declared that He’d completed the sin bearing task, and dismissed His spirit back to the Father. The seventh statement, “I am thirsty”, has been interpreted both horizontally and vertically. While some view the words as a request to people for a drink (horizontal), others view it vertically as Jesus requesting from the Father the cup He’d sought to escape in the garden of Gethsemane.