Seven Last Words of Christ (Meditations)

Seven Last Words of Christ

String Quartet Sonatas  Opus 51  

Joseph Haydn

Performed by the Ariana String Quartet

Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

Monday 2 April 7:00 p.m.

“Hope in Affliction”

Reflections on the Seven Last Words

Father Anthony Hutchinson

  

MEDITATIONS

Introduzione: D minor — Maestoso ed adagio

Seven Words of Christ hanging on the Cross.  Seven, the number of perfection.  The number of completion, of rest after creation, Sabbath after work, death after life. 

Seven sayings from Four Gospels, told by Ministers of the Word a generation later, whose tellings are on occasion at odds. 

In the first Gospel written, gentile Mark, and that of his Jewish editor and adapter, Matthew, a single word of seeming despair, a quote from a Psalm of ultimate hope and trust in God’s goodness:

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

In the Gospel of Gentile Physician and historian Luke, three words: 

a prayer for forgiveness for the torturers

Father forgive them, for they know not what they do

an assurance of love and hope for a fellow sufferer who expressed compassion,

Truly, I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise

and a dying child’s prayer of trust in its parent:

Father, into your hands I commit my spirit (last words)

In the final Gospel, John, who stresses for his beloved community at all cost the divinity of Jesus, three words:

A plea to care for Mary his mother and honor her as our own:  

Woman, behold [my disciple] your child: [disciple,] behold your mother  

A croaking gasp of need and oneness with all who yearn for refreshment

I thirst

A dying declaration that the Jesus’ suffering is over. 

It is finished

Seven words in Four Gospels, traditionally understood as expressing theological ideas.   But all these seven words are words of hope in affliction, faith amid pain, and solidarity with suffering humankind.

     I.         Sonata I: B-flat major — Largo 

Pater, dimitte illis, quia nesciunt, quid faciunt.

Father, forgive them, they know not what they do.

Jesus is a victim, but so too are those who torture him.  They are bound in system of discipline and power that requires their brutality, lest they be brutalized for disobedience and insubordination. 

But the victim of violence and injustice is not the same as the victim perpetrator of violence and injustice.  A line divides guilt and innocence.  But Jesus sees through justice and injustice, fairness and abuse, guilt and innocence.  He recognizes his torturers too as God’s creatures, bearing the image of God, no matter how badly twisted.  And he wishes them forgiveness for their guilt, healing for their own victimhood. 

Here is forgiveness in affliction.  

                    II.         Sonata II:  C minor, ending in C major — Grave e cantabile

Hodie mecum eris in Paradiso.

This day you shall be with me in Paradise.

Jesus is suffering the death of a traitor and subversive.  His crime is written, tongue-in-cheek, as a title on his Cross, “King of the Jews,” the hoped-for David who would bring freedom to Israel. Crucified with him hang two random political rebels, terrorists who fought the Roman Imperial Power and lost.  One mocks Jesus along with the crowd and soldiers,  “If you really are the coming King David, then go ahead, save us now.”  The other scolds him, “Have you no fear of God?  You are suffering just as he is, but the two of us actually did something to deserve this. This poor man did nothing!”  A line divides guilt and innocence, and we are guilty.  Then in compassion, not mockery, he adds, “Please sir, when you come into your kingdom remember me and be kind.”  Jesus, in equal compassion replies, “It is on this very day that the two of us will meet in the garden of delights.” 

Here is comfort to others in affliction. 

     III.         Sonata III: E major — Grave

Mulier, ecce filius tuus.

Woman, behold thy son.

When he began his public preaching, Jesus was accused of abandoning his Mother and siblings.  They thought he had gone mad when he left them to follow John the Baptist and then pursue his prophetic calling.  “Who are my true mother and brothers?” he asked at one point, answering, “those who seek God.”  Now dying, and seeing the mother he had thus left behind to follow God standing in shock and grief at the sight of her dying son, Jesus is concerned for her suffering, as well as her wellbeing.  This new family of his, the community of those following him, is what he bequeaths to his Mother:  “Woman, behold my disciple, now your son.  Disciple, behold this woman, now your mother.”     

Here is concern for others, for family and friends, in the face of death. 

   IV.         Sonata IV: F minor — Largo

Deus meus, Deus meus, utquid dereliquisti me?

My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?

Throughout his life, Jesus prayed and quoted the Psalms.  Here in his moment of mortal need, he begins to sing in his native tongue Aramaic Psalm 22, אלהי אלהי למא        שבקתני [ēlâhî ēlâhî lamâ šabaqtanî]. It is a song of distress, but not one of despair.  It is a song of hope and trust in God even in the worst affliction.  

1    My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?

   and are so far from my cry

   and from the words of my distress?

2    O my God, I cry in the daytime, but you do not answer;

   by night as well, but I find no rest.

3    Yet you are the Holy One,

   enthroned upon the praises of Israel.

4    Our ancestors trusted in you;

   they trusted, and you delivered them.  …

19  Save me from the sword,

   my life from the power of the dog.  …

23  … [The Lord] does not despise nor abhor the poor in their poverty;

neither does he hide his face from them;

   but when they cry to him he hears them.  …

25  The poor shall eat and be satisfied,

and those who seek the Lord shall praise him …

29  My soul shall live for him . . .

30  … a people yet unborn [shall know]

   the saving deeds that he has done.

Here is hope and trust even when God seems to have abandoned us to horror. 

V.         Sonata V:  A major — Adagio

Sitio.

I thirst.

Jesus, when he meets the Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well early in John’s Gospel, promises himself as the living water.  “The one who drinks it,” he says, “will never be thirsty again. It will spring up from within, and become an unending source of flowing water.”  On the cross, as Jesus sings Psalm 22, he says,

15  My mouth is dried out like a pot‑sherd;

my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth;

   and you have laid me in the dust of the grave.

“I thirst,” Jesus says, and they give him soured wine on a sponge to drink.  Later, to kill him, they pierce his side with a lance, and water flows from his side, mixed with his blood. 

“I thirst,” says the Living Water, the spring of God’s grace, who thus marks himself as one with all who suffer thirst and seek refreshment. 

Here is solidarity in bitter need. 

VI.         Sonata VI:  G minor, ending in G major — Lento

Consummatum est.

It is finished.  John 19: 30

“It is finished” Jesus moans in relief as blood loss, shock, and slow suffocation bring him near death, the end of his suffering.  “Tetelestai” he says in the Greek of John’s Gospel.  “The telos, the purpose or end that God intends, is accomplished.”  “I have reached the end of the path God gave me.”  God does not want his creatures to suffer, and does not want Jesus to suffer.  Death is relief from suffering. Though horror is all about, Jesus sees God’s good purpose fulfilled.  “It is finished.  Thanks be to God.” 

Here is relief in endings. 

VII.         Sonata VII: E-flat major — Largo

In manus tuas, Domine, commendo spiritum meum.

Into your hands, O Lord, I entrust my spirit.  Luke 23:46

Jesus in dying, quotes another Psalm of his people, Psalm 31.  He abandons himself to the God who seems to have abandoned him. 

1    In you, O Lord, have I taken refuge;

let me never be put to shame;

    deliver me in your righteousness.

2    Incline your ear to me;

    make haste to deliver me.

3    Be my strong rock, a castle to keep me safe,

for you are my crag and my stronghold;

    for the sake of your Name, lead me and guide me.

4    Take me out of the net that they have set for me,

    for you are my tower of strength.

5    Into your hands I entrust my spirit,

    for you have bought me back,

    O Lord, O God of truth.

Here is hope by emptying oneself.  Here is trust in suffering.  Here is light in the darkness. 

Conclusion: C minor — Presto e con tutta la forza

Il terremoto (the Earthquake)

Seven words in Four Gospels.  In them, Jesus (as well as he can) comforts a fellow prisoner being executed, tries to arrange his affairs and comfort his Mother, asks for a drink of water, sings two psalms praising God, hoping against hope, trusting against trust, and dies. 

Here is hope within suffering, compassion in affliction, trust in abandonment, love within horror. 

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.