Jesus' Seven Last Words

Mark 15: 33-39
Luke 23: 32-49
John 19: 25-30
This week, in addition to being Holy Week and the first taste of Spring, has been the week of Passover, which does not always happen, as one is based on the cycle of the Sun and the other on the cycle of the Moon. On the first night of Passover, we were honored to be invited to share the Seder meal with a family of this community who are both Jewish and Christian. After the lighting of the candles, the washing of hands, and the breaking of bread at the start of the sacred meal, there is a remembrance of all God has done for us in salvation throughout history. After naming each, there is a response Dayenu, meaning “It would have been enough.”
God created life from the waste and void of time and space:“It would have been enough, Dayenu! God separated light from the darkness, dry land from the waters of chaos, and made every living thing to fill creation, even giving us partners for life: “It would have been enough,” Dayenu!
Humanity oppressed & subjugated one another as slaves and God heard our prayers and cared!Dayenu! God sent a series of 10 plagues, the final of which being the gift of the passover for our ancestors and the death of the firstborn for their oppressors. Which would have been enough: Dayenu!
God parted the seas to set them free: Dayenu! God gave the people the 10 Commandments: Dayenu! God provided for them in the wilderness: Dayenu! God brought them to the Promised Land: Dayenu! God loved David and promised a King forever for Israel: Dayenu!
Loving the world so much, God gave God's only begotten Son: Dayenu!
Who called leaders to follow and taught them: Dayenu.
He fed the poor, healed the sick, brought Lazarus back from death, would have been enough Dayenu! Christ Jesus gave us this sacred meal, as sign and seal of our forgiveness: Dajenu!
But this night, we lift up, that the one who was God's gift, the incarnation Emmanuel God with us, Suffered and died for us: Dajenu!
And we wait in anticipation and hope and faith for God to raise him from the dead: Dajenu!

So this night, instead of explaining the elements of Communion or the washing of feet and servanthood we listen for the last words of Jesus as the Christian Passover during the Sacrifice on the Cross.

Over the years I have heard many ministers and believers make reference to “Jesus 7 Last Words”. What is surprising is that one phrase is used by Mark and Matthew, though for different reasons. Luke has three other final words from Jesus, and John yet three others. Such that, while each of the Gospels describes Jesus' Baptism, and his calling Disciples, and the Last Supper of Communion, and that he was arrested and crucified, died and rose again, none of the Gospels do so the same way, they use different names for the disciples, and even Jesus' last words are recorded differently.

In John's Gospel, Jesus is first described by John the Baptist as The Lamb of God, the Passover sacrificial lamb whose blood takes away the sins of the world. Here the Cross becomes his throne, as Jesus is lifted up in Mock Coronation as “King”.

The three words from Jesus, in John, are first to his Mother and the Beloved Disciple, that they should be given to care for one another as Parent and Child. John is writing differently from Matthew, Mark and Luke, instead of to an individual or a Church, the Gospel is addressed to a Community of Faith, that as the community we should care for one another. Would that when loved ones die, we did assign to one another, not just who gets the car and how to divide up the assets, not only living wills of what extraneous measures we desire, but who will care for our loved ones for us.

Second, there is a symbolic reference, remembering that Jesus said to the Woman at the Well, the woman who had had 7 husbands and was living with an 8th, that he was Water of Life! And yet here, Jesus says: “I Thirst.” Each of the Gospels, as different as they are, each emphasize that Jesus is completely human, as well as being the Messiah. At his death, Jesus the Man, is yearning for something more! Yet, the guards misunderstand and give him vinegar spoiled wine.

John's Gospel tells the cosmic story, beginning not with birth in a stable, but “In the Beginning” and his final words from the cross are “It is finished.” Everything about the Crucifixion is as an ending, closure control, finality, Dajenu! and yet God offers more.

Luke has the interchange between Jesus and the two criminals condemned to death. As the crowd has condemned him, as the soldiers crucify him as deserving death, when Pilate and Herod have found no guilt in him; Jesus proclaims: “Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.” Which as all humanity has done this to him, is forgiveness for us all. Perhaps it is because so many of the generation that fought WWII have lived longer lives, perhaps it is Spring and the beginning of a new year after a long winter, but it seems there have been more deaths this year. Repeatedly, of late, I have been asked by many, that their spouse, their father or child, did not practice faith in God, so what will happen. I have to believe that there is power in our love of one another. That as you believe, as you have loved mother or father, spouse and child, your love, like the love of Christ forgives those who know not what they do.

As one of the Condemned blasphemes, as do the crowd, “You saved others save yourself”, one of the two condemned repents of his wrong and turns to follow Jesus. At which, Jesus promises “This day, you will be with me in paradise.” Luke's Gospel is all about that redemption, the Lost Coin found, the Lost Child returned Home, the Prostitute and Civil Servant each turning to God through Jesus' love. The point is not whether faith comes repeatedly throughout life, or even when condemned to die and hanging on the cross, the point is to believe.

At which point in Luke, Jesus offers up “Into Thine hands O LORD, I commend my spirit.”
How odd, that throughout time, researchers have sought the stable where Jesus was born, sought to prove and disprove the shroud of Turin, sought to identify the tomb and the place of the skull or with the Da Vinci Code sought to prove the ancestral blood line from Jesus, AND Yet none have questioned that as Jesus' spirit came from God, it was given back to God? Many of us grieve, that a loved one did not live long enough, or that we want them back, the bigger picture is that our spirits are from God, lent to this life for a time, and then returned to God, not that they belonged to this life and were lost in death.

Mark and Matthew deal with the same phrase spoken by the Savior from the cross. “Eloi, Eloi, Lema Sabach-thani.” “My God, My God, Why have You Forsaken Me.” It is a realization that as one who is fully human, he would have felt the betrayal and abandonment of everyone: Judas Kiss, Simon Peter's three times confessing “I do Not know the man.” And as all of us feel at different times in life, that even God has abandoned us. The Broken Body of the Loaf is not simply death but abandoned betrayal. But though he feels abandoned, though he feels all alone and cut-off, God did not forsake him. We all know and love the 23rd Psalm, “The Lord is my Shepherd”, but actually this comes as response to Psalm 22 which began “My God, my God, Why hast Thou forsaken me?”

Finally, Matthew does something different, that when Jesus died, all the tombs were opened and all the souls returned to God. What happens in the Crucifixion, is not simply a contest of Good and Evil, but Jesus atoning with his life for all the souls of all humanity, he becomes the Lamb of God sacrificed for the Passover of all the world.

The 7 Last Words of Jesus, come down to this: Forgive One Another as You are Forgiven!