Christ’s Last Moments on the Cross

“And when Jesus had cried out with a loud voice, He said, ‘Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit.’ Having said this, He breathed His last….And the whole crowd who came together to that sight, seeing what had been done, beat their breasts and returned” (Luke 23:46,48)

It was truly a spectacle—the last moments of our Lord and Savior on the cross, and what they saw—that spectacular event when He shouted out with a loud voice: “Finished!” [omitted by Luke, but mentioned in Matthew and Mark]. The word for a spectacle, theoria, appears only here in the entire Gospel, and yet it remained for the later Church fathers a prime source of contemplation.

All who were present at that trauma-filled time left with His word ringing in their ears—the shout of a victor, not a whisper of a beaten, defeated victim. Imagine yourself there at the time. What would you be feeling and thinking? The apostle Thomas understood it then as indeed the end. It’s all over: All the talk about something earth-changing about to happen—then the Master crying out “Finished!” But if that was his thought, Thomas would have been wrong. Not at all a conclusion, but it was a completion. He meant: Consummated. The entire purpose of His incarnation comes to fruition. The meaning of His birth, life, ministry, including the events that led Him to the cross—all fulfilled by His obedience to the will of the heavenly Father. It’s not self-evident; it requires contemplation. Entering into the temple of the mind and descending into the heart. Spectacle—theoria—a term some say that comes from theon oran, or seeing God in everything. To meditate even as we do from a distance in time of two millennia removed from the actual moment in history when it happened—even we can recognize the hand of God in Trinity bringing this traumatic event come about.

To “see God in everything” is to understand the last prayer of our Lord — “Father, into Your hands I commit My spirit!” How many evenings of His early life had He heard those very words from Psalm 31:5 uttered by the voice of His precious mother when as a child she would wrap Him in a blanket and lull Him to sleep. Had she remembered those years? Did she then recall the foreboding of the ancient Symeon in the temple as he returned the infant Jesus to her saying: “A sword will pierce your own soul also, that the thoughts of many will be revealed” [2:35]. But it’s not quite the precise text of the psalm. Our loving Lord added a single word at the start — “Father!” God is assumed and addressed; however, Jesus is speaking to the One for Whom He did it all. He is using these last breaths to say to His Father—I’ve completed the job I came to earth to do…and now I’m coming home.

Imagine all who had the honor and privilege of witnessing the action which certified our salvation. If theoria implies seeing God in all things, those who were actually there had the opportunity to do so that day. And we who are alive in the Holy Spirit are with the guidance of the Spirit and the presence of Jesus Christ in Whom we have been baptized—we too have the spiritual capability to see God in everything; however, it requires a great deal of development and conquest of passions to bring it about before we meet Him in His Father’s kingdom.

How privileged they were who had been there watching Christ’s crucifixion. We can only imagine their musings as they left that traumatic scene. In the poignant anecdote of the two returning to Emmaus [24:13-35], St. Luke provides us with two who had witnessed the crucifixion—Clopas and perhaps the evangelist himself, who were among those who “beat their breasts.” Already that very day the seeds of the Church had been planted in many hearts. It includes as well the words from the evangelist, St. John:

“We beheld His glory!” (John 1:14)