Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. Luke 23:46
“Your father has only a few more months to live,” the doctor told us. Despite my dad’s health having deteriorated for months, those dreaded words still stung. I had always longed for Dad to receive Christ, but as the years passed he still had not accepted the Lord.
As he was admitted to a hospital in Melaka, a strong inner feeling pushed me to arrange a fellow believer to visit him regularly. That weekend, I went home and introduced him to a pastor friend.
Surprisingly, he was open as the pastor shared Psalm 121 and played him a Hokkien Christian song on YouTube. The following Monday, my heart skipped a few beats when I received a call from the hospital. The nurse told me that Dad was complaining and quickly passed the phone to him.
“Where is everybody? Why is no one visiting me? I’m going to die soon!” Dad wailed. I reminded him that I had visited him two days ago but to no avail. In that opportune moment, I asked him, “When the time comes, I know where I am going. When the time comes, do you know where you are going?”
That intense conversation turned into a little argument. “What is there for you to lose to accept Jesus?” I said. “You don’t lose anything by accepting him but there’s everything to gain!” The conversation trailed off and ended with me saying I would see him again the next time I was back in Melaka.
The next day I received a surprise message from my pastor friend: Hi Joshua, just visited your dad and he accepted Jesus into his life and followed me as I led him in the sinner’s prayer. I asked him, “Do you want to invite Jesus into your life and let him be your Lord and Saviour?” He said, “Why not?”
What an amazing turn of events! It’s been a few years now since Dad has passed on, but if there’s one thing I learnt, it’s that we have to keep sowing and watering, for we never know when the harvest will come. For some, like our elderly parents, there is always a chance that they will surrender their lives to Christ – even at the very end.
What would you like your last words to be? Write them down, so loved ones can read them after gone. How might you reflect these last words today?
The gospel of Mark says, “Jesus uttered another loud cry and breathed his last” (15:37). Matthew agrees, “Jesus shouted out again, and he released his spirit” (27:50). What was this last, loud cry? Was it a shout of triumph or despair? Did it mark the lowest part of Jesus’ suffering or the start of His victory?
We don’t have to guess because Luke fills in the blank. He writes, “Then Jesus shouted, ‘Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!’ And with those words he breathed his last” (23:46). John adds that Jesus also said, “ ‘It is finished!’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (19:30).
Jesus’ final cry was a painful shout of trust in God. And because His final words were infused with faith, they wouldn’t be His last. God raised Jesus—His precious Son—in triumph, as He will one day raise all who keep faith in Christ.
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