One of the most beautiful prayers is the prayer of commendation from the funeral liturgy. It is the last act in the funeral service when we commend our deceased loved one to God’s everlasting care. It is often prayed, too, at the bed side of a Christian in the moments before their death.
In the Prayer of Commendation we pray:
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant … Acknowledge, we beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her/him into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
I have spoken this prayer many times – in commending the dying and most of the time in commending the dead, praying over their body or ashes. And every time I lead this prayer or listen to it spoken by others, I am moved. The Prayer of Commendation brims with Good News and the promises of God and provides a vivid picture of God.
I’ve found this act of prayer to be a source of healing for those in grief and especially comforting for those of us who claim the faith of Jesus. A sister or brother in Christ does not merely “pass away” or live in our hearts. No, those who have died in Christ are commended to his everlasting care. Life hasn’t ended as much as it has changed. Numbered among the communion of saints who live in perpetual light, our loved ones are in the good hands of the Good Shepherd.
In the rituals surrounding death, I think we naturally focus on the loved one who has died – their life and their story. That is all very appropriate and necessary, but when we make it solely about the deceased we may set ourselves up for forgetting that the in death the focus is on Christ and the God who raises the dead. More than a “celebration of life,” in the funeral we commend our loved ones to God.
When a person dies a eulogy or an obituary may laud the person who died or not, and the unofficial chatter may or may not confirm what is said in public. Invariably, we tend to make judgements about the deceased, be they good or bad, or call to mind how much they have achieved or all their good works. There’s no telling how we respond to people after their death, but our responses don’t mean much, and our memories which are great and necessary and serve a good purpose are not the stuff of eternity.
So, we turn to God who is the source of healing, salvation, and eternal love. The Prayer of Commendation takes us to a better place – it takes us to the Good Shepherd who acts in love for all the sheep. Though we may enjoy making distinctions and easy judgments, the Shepherd loves everyone in the flock the same. Every lamb and every sheep is valued and loved and nurtured and nourished. Best of all, the shepherd knows us. He calls us by name. We are known. The shepherd knows us intimately.
My mother died in September of 2020. It was at the height of the pandemic. You remember that it was a rough time for everyone. The months preceding her death were especially rough for my mother and our family. When she convalesced, our visits were not up close but through the window in her room, and when she was in the hospital a couple of times, visitors were limited to just one a day.
The service was at the graveside because COVID would not allow us to gather indoors. If that were the case, there would have been a lot of people. Even at the graveside service outdoors there was even a limit to how many could attend. I think we would all agree that the pandemic complicated things. For me, it seemed like the events surrounding her death were incomplete. I knew she was resting in God’s hands but the circumstances around her sickness and her death made for little contact and for very little ritual. I felt a sense of emptiness.
So, I took on a practice after her death. I prayed the Commendation Prayer every day for many weeks as I grieved her loss. It reassured me that she was and is fully in God’s hands. At least once a day I would pray:
Into your hands, O merciful Savior, we commend your servant Jean. Acknowledge, we humbly beseech you, a sheep of your own fold, a lamb of your own flock, a sinner of your own redeeming. Receive her into the arms of your mercy, into the blessed rest of everlasting peace, and into the glorious company of the saints in light.
I had no control over her death. There was nothing I could do to change what happened. I felt powerless, so the gift of prayer was there to use and reciting the Commendation Prayer each day was a rich practice and reminder that my mom was safe in the Shepherd’s fold. Yes, we grieve but we do not grieve as those who have no hope.
As one of the shepherd’s flock, when we have nowhere to go, we can go and rely upon the shepherd.
One thing that was driven home to me through this prayer is that the Good Shepherd doesn’t take lives. He receives them. The Shepherd protects us in life and death. Christ receives us in death, enfolds us in everlasting love, mercy and peace and into the communion of saints who know perpetual light.
In Jesus Christ we have a Good Shepherd.
Friends, this is good news not only when a loved one dies. This is good news throughout our lives, this side of the grave. For we are already, now, sheep of Christ’s fold, lambs of his flock, and we live in the freedom of those who have been redeemed and we live and have our being in God’s gift of forgiveness and mercy.
Commanded to love one another and our neighbors as ourselves, we’ve been given the gift of discernment to sort out what that means as each of us seeks to follow Jesus and as we follow Jesus as we follow him together. The good news is that we can trust this shepherd to guide us for he has done for us what we could never do for ourselves – this shepherd laid down his life for us. And it is all gift.
At baptism we were received into the shepherd’s fold and flock and we would do well to remember that in good times and bad times, in joyous times and troubling times or challenging times, we are in good hands.
In his little treatise, What to look for and expect in the Gospels, Martin Luther put it this way: “Before you take Christ as an example, you must first see him as a gift, as a present that God has given you and that is your own.”
Before you take Christ as an example, you must first see him as a gift.
In the same treatise Luther says we should indeed follow Jesus and imitate him. Absolutely. But, he says that if we keep Christ only on that level, then Christ cannot help us.
First of all, we must see the Shepherd as gift.
Luther continues …
“Christ as gift nourishes your faith and makes you a Christian. Christ as example exercises your works, but these do not make you Christian. … The gospel is really not a book of laws and commandments but one of divine promises in which God promises, offers, and gives us all his possessions and benefits.”
On this Good Shepherd Sunday and in this season of Easter we celebrate the one who knows us and cares for us and gives and gives and gives to us.
Just as the commendation prayer is a help to many to remember where to go in times of desperation and in times where we are clearly not in control, I wonder how we might pray daily to the Shepherd.
We have a Good Shepherd.
And with the shepherd comes safe grazing in his flock.
There is much loneliness in the world, and I suspect all of us know something of the experience of being rejected or excluded. Many people don’t have the sense that they belong anywhere. The good news is that you belong here.
Our status before God and within the community does not depend upon how smart or successful we are or how good we are. Perfection is not required. Nor is it and it isn’t possible. The Good Shepherd asks us to trust him.
We are vulnerable sheep entrusted to the care of the shepherd.
We have a Good Shepherd.
There is much pressure, sometimes peer pressure or the high expectations of others or the ones we place upon ourselves to claim our identity in something other than Christ. Friends, you are baptized. You are loved without question or condition and God has set you into the world to bear witness to God’s goodness.
We have a Good Shepherd.
You belong. You belong to the sheepfold, the flock. You belong to the tender care of the Shepherd and together we live under the wise guidance of the Shepherd. In life and in death.
I wonder what prayer you might use to know that you are in good hands.
Perhaps one like this –
The Lord is my shepherd,
I shall not want.
He makes me lie down in green pastures;
he leads me beside still waters;
he restores my soul.He leads me in right paths for his namesake and guides me along
safe pathways for his name’s sake.
Even though I walk through the darkest valley,
I fear no evil;
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff, they comfort me.
You prepare a table before me in the presence of my enemies;
you anoint my head with oil;
my cup overflows.Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of my Lord forever. Amen.