The Seven Last “Words” of Jesus Christ from the cross are actually 7 short phrases that Jesus uttered on Calvary that serve as an excellent holy week meditation. To find all of the seven last words of Jesus Christ, one must read all the gospels since none of the evangelists records all 7 last words. The sayings would have been originally uttered by Jesus in the Aramaic language, but only one of the last seven words of Jesus is preserved for us in the original Aramaic, namely “Eli, Eli, lama sabacthani” or “My God, My God, why have you forsaken me,” which is actually a direct quote of the opening verse of Psalm 22.
The First Word
When they came to the place called “The Skull”, they nailed Jesus to the cross there, and the two criminals, one on his right and one on his left. Jesus said “Forgive them, Father! They do not know what they are doing.” (Luke 23:33-34)
Meditation on the First Word
“They do not know what they are doing”
They do not know? They …who killed Jesus?
Who is “they”?
It is so easy to name others, to blame others, the Romans, the crowd, Pilate, Herod, Caiaphas. They all played their part and conspired against Jesus or simply followed orders to maintain the peace to keep Jesus’ kingdom from infringing on theirs. And yet where are we when Jesus’ kingdom infringes on ours? On our peace and our order? On our prosperity and our security?
Where are we when the victims of our peace cry for justice?
When those disenfranchised by our order call for compassion?
When the hungry and the lonely beg us to share our prosperity, our security
our power? Where are we when Christ is crucified among us?
Surely he should have raged at the sinners who nailed him to the tree. Surely he should have raged at us for the evil we do, the evil we do both knowing and unknowing. Yet compassion is there in the first words that he utters, He intercedes for us before the Father,
“Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing”
The Second Word
One of the criminals hanging there threw insults at him: “Aren’t you the Messiah? Save yourself and us!” The other one, however, rebuked him, saying: “Don’t you fear God? Here we are all under the same sentence. Ours, however, is only right, for we are getting what we deserve for what we did; but he has done no wrong.” And he said to Jesus, “Remember me, Jesus, when you come as King!” Jesus said to him, “I tell you this: Today you will be in Paradise with me.” (Luke 23:39-43)
Meditation on The Second Word
How much are we like the first thief?
Full of anger – because we are not rescued from our sin?
Full of hate – because we suffer because of the sins of others?
How much do we want God to snap his fingers and make right what we have made wrong?
What we have allowed others to make wrong?
How easy it is to cry “save us” and to rail against God when there is no magic cure, no miraculous recovery no legions of angels to take away pain and bring wholeness. How easy it is to scorn the Messiah, to mock the goodness of the world and condemn the light of the world because we are unwilling to face what we we have done? Yet there is goodness, there is a cure for sin, a cure that does not promise magical solutions but promises that the pain of sin is not the end, that when all this is over when the suffering is finished that the final word is not torture and defeat but life — life springing out of the ashes, life transformed and fulfilled in Paradise.
To the compassionate thief;
To the one who could still recognize the good in the world;
To the one who tried to comfort and protect that good;
To the one who sought good, comfort was given.
“Today, you will be in paradise with me.”
The Third Word
Standing close to Jesus’ cross were his mother, his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. Jesus saw his mother and the disciple he loved standing there; so he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that time the disciple took her to live in his home. (John 19:25-27)
Meditation on the Third Word
Who can grasp the grief of Mary watching her son suffer?
The grief of Mary watching Him die?
And who can grasp the grief of the son?
The son who must see his mother mourn?
What gift can a man give his mother?
What can he offer when he is gone?
How can he help her, hold her, comfort her and honor her?
Here is one I love, to love you, and for you to love. One who knows me
One who is my brother and who can speak of me. One Who can hold you,
comfort you, and honor you; One who shares your grief. “Here is your mother” here is one I love, for you to love, and to love you. The one who taught me, the one who fed me, the one who wiped away my tears the one who hugged me, the one who grieves with you.
“Women, behold your children; children, behold your mothers”.
The Forth Word
And when the sixth hour had come, there was darkness over the whole land until the ninth hour. And at the ninth hour Jesus cried with a loud voice, “Elo-i, elo-i, lama sabach-thani?” which means, “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Mark 15:33-34)
Meditation on the Fourth Word
Of all the agony of that tortuous day
The lacerations of the scourging
The chafing of the thorns around his head
The convulsions of his tormented, dehydrated body as it hung in the heat all the day
Nothing reaches the depth of this anguished cry of desolation
“My God, my god, why hast thou forsaken me?”
Jesus, who found his purpose and strength in the presence of God who was sustained by the immediacy of his relationship with God and who endured all by the tangible power of God always at work within him, always a centre of vitality and peace, found himself totally alone on the cross. Jesus, whose very being was God, found himself utterly, absolutely, despairingly, cut off from all that gives life. Jesus himself plumbing the depths of the human condition to walk in the place of the utter absence of God, in the place of sinners in the place of those who reject God.
“My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?”.
The Fifth Word
After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), “I thirst.” (John 19:28)
Meditation on the Fifth Word
There is a kind of timelessness about hanging on a cross.
It is not a quiet death, over in an instant in one glorious moment of martyrdom like being torn apart by lions.
A cross is as much an instrument of torture as it is a gallows from which to hang
And as the day wears on seconds stretch into minutes which stretch into hours until there comes a point when time can no longer be measured except in the gradual weakening of the body and its ever more insistent demands for that substance which is so vital to life so foundational to all living things so basic to existence as we know it… water!
Water to moisten a parched mouth, water to free a swollen tongue, water to open a rasping throat that cannot gasp enough air. Water to keep hope alive
to keep life alive just a few moments longer. Water, to a crucified man, is life. “O God, thou art my God, I seek thee, my soul thirsts for thee; my flesh faints for thee as in a dry and weary land where no water is”. Who can tell if these words from Psalm 63 went through Jesus mind but a thirst for water is a thirst for life and a thirst for life is a thirst for God who promises streams in the desert mighty rivers in the dry land and living water to wash away every tear. Here, at the end of it all those promises seem far away, distant. And yet Jesus – forsaken by God still clings to the memory and the hope of life.
“I thirst.”
The Sixth Word
A bowl was there, full of cheap wine mixed with vinegar, so a sponge was soaked in it, put on stlk of hyssop and lifted up to his lips. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished”. (John 19:29-30)
Meditation on the Sixth Word
What a sigh of relief!
What a cry of deliverance,that finally,after seemingly endless pain
and gasping torment, it is over at last.
The suffering is ended.
The ordeal is finished and nothing remains
but the blessed peace of the absence of all sensation.
When all there is, is pain its ceasing is the greatest blessing of all even when its ceasing comes only with death. But Jesus’ cry is more than just welcoming the ending of pain it is more than joy at the deliverance death brings. He does not merely say, “it is over” he says, “it is accomplished,
fulfilled, achieved” Jesus’ cry isn’t a cry of defeat and despair, it’s a cry of success and triumph even at the moment of death. That the race has been run, that he has endured to the end, that the strife is over and the battle is won. Jesus’ cry is a cry of relief to be sure but it is also a cry of victory: “The work I came to do is complete” there is nothing more to add!
“it is finished”
The Seventh Word
Then Jesus, crying with a loud voice, said, “Father, into thy hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last. (Luke 23:46)
Meditation on the Seventh Word
It is the end, the very end of the ordeal,
the end of the suffering and Jesus alone on the cross tortured,
exhausted abandoned by his friends forsaken by God
gasps for a last breath and gathers the strength for one final cry.
Why would he choose to speak so close to the end?
Why would he muster the last energy he had to cry out with a loud voice?
Couldn’t God have heard his thoughts?
Unless God wasn’t the only one intended to hear. Unless his voice was pitched loud so that we too might hear this final dedication of his soul. A dedication made despite the pain, despite the mocking, despite the agony,
despite the sense of horrible lonesomeness he felt. A dedication made to God before the resurrection, before the victory of the kingdom, before any assurance other than that which faith could bring. Jesus entrusts his spirit, his life and all that has given it meaning to God in faith,even at the point of his own abandonment when the good seems so very far away he proclaims his faith in God, the darkness cannot overcome it.
“Father, into your hands, I commit my spirit”
In times of suffering, when all seems dark, when discouragement and sadness overwhelm us, do we turn to God and surrender ourselves into his loving care? Do we really believe that he reserves great things for us? Why not put our lives in his hands today? He wants to bestow his favor on us and bless us. So why wait? Here is what you could say to God in prayer:
Lord God, I recognize my faults. You could have condemned me because of them but you chose to condemn Jesus in my place. Thank you for his sufferings and his death on the cross. I pray that you forgive all my sins. Give me your Spirit, and enable me today to start a new life in fellowship with you. I want to follow you, to be attentive to your voice and to please you. Without waiting, I now put myself in your service. Amen!
Redeemed 