Good Friday
Jesus’ third ‘word’ from the cross recorded by Luke is ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit’ (Luke 23: 46), following which He ‘breathed His last’. For Luke, this is not only Jesus’ final word from the cross; it is also the last clue he gives us to the inner significance of what is happening at The Skull.
On the road to Jerusalem we have eavesdropped on many of Jesus’ encounters with others. But only one of them parallels this moment. Here we have the consummation of what took place in Gethsemane. Here – as there – it is His own Father whom Jesus ‘encounters’. While He refers to Him frequently in this Gospel, there are only three places where He addresses Him directly (Luke 10:21-22; 22:42 and 23:46).
John Richard de Witt 1935 – 2018
Dr John de Witt, known to many readers
of en, went to be with Christ on Sunday
30 September in Columbia, South Carolina
where he had served as senior minister of
First Presbyterian Church.
Ordained
in 1959, he had exercised a
long and varied ministry in Paterson, N.J.
(1959-64), Grove Chapel, Camberwell,
London (1967-69), Kingstree, S.C. (1970-75), Reformed Seminary in Jackson Miss.
(where he served as professor of church history and then of systematic theology, 1975
-82), Memphis, Tenn.
(1983-93), Grand
Rapids, Mich. (1993-2000, where, remarkably, a new gallery had to be built to hold the
increased congregation). He was then drawn
out of
‘retirement’
to First Presbyterian Church in Columbia, S.C. (2001-2005).