psalm 31: prayer of surrender: dec 26 2017

Today we read Psalm 31.  Psalm 31 is a famous psalm because this must have been the psalm meditated upon by Jesus as he hung dying on the cross.  The same is true with St. Stephen, our Saint on this second day of Christmas.  This psalm must have been also in his mind when they were throwing stones on him and when, like Jesus, he too was in the brink of death.  Both Jesus and Stephen recited the fifth verse of this psalm saying, "Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit."

Psalm 31 is a prayer of desperation, “Rescue me from the clutches of my enemies and my persecutors; save me in your kindness.” But more than just a prayer of desperation it is at the same time a prayer of confident trust, You are my rock and my fortress; you will redeem me, O LORD, O faithful God.  And finally it is an act of surrender "Into your hands I commend my spirt.”  This is never uttered in despair but always in confident trust. 

In Christian tradition this this prayer is prayed as the last prayer of the day, just before we sleep.  Since ancient times sleep and death, night and darkness are seen as related.  Kon familiar kamo sa Greek mythology, Nyx (night) and Erebus (darkness) mag-asawa kag may bata sila nga kapid, si Thanatus (death) kag ang iya kapid nga si Hypnos (sleep).  Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit, is a prayer said in the night and in darkness because in sleep we look forward to death.

Today we celebrate the death, the martyrdom of St. Stephen.  On the second day of Christmas when foremost in our minds is the birth of our Savior in a manger, birth to this world, we are reminded of another birth, the birth to eternal life, the dies natalis or the real birthday of every Christian.

Into your hands, O Lord, I commend my spirit – psalm 31.  We pray this prayer of Jesus and Stephen, so that like them we too may learn to surrender ourselves to God, knowing that even in death we are born to eternal life to be with God forever..