It Is Finished

 

When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they divided his clothes among the four of them.  They also took his robe, but it was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.  So they said, “Rather than tearing it apart, let’s throw dice for it.”  This fulfilled the Scripture that says, “They divided my garments among themselves and threw dice for my clothing.”  So that is what they did.  Standing near the cross were Jesus’ mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary (the wife of Clopas), and Mary Magdalene.  When Jesus saw his mother standing there beside the disciple he loved, he said to her, “Dear woman, here is your son.”  And he said to this disciple, “Here is your mother.”  And from then on this disciple took her into his home.  Jesus knew that his mission was now finished, and to fulfill Scripture he said, “I am thirsty.”  A jar of sour wine was sitting there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put it on a hyssop branch, and held it up to his lips.  When Jesus had tasted it, he said, “It is finished!”   

Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.  John 19:23-30

Sometimes preachers study a Bible text with the wrong lens (guilty as charged).  We dryly pick-apart the words, tenses, context, and usage.  But language without pathos, and intelligence without feeling, will always claim correctness – and there is an accuracy of linguistics to be claimed – but that dry toast analysis, correct as it might be, will miss the humanity and grit of what is most important. 

Jesus didn’t die in a vacuum; this cross is not a picture to be painted, or a jewelry piece to be worn.  The passion of the Christ is blood, and it is the Word of God made flesh, pierced because of our sins.  It is pain, born of forgiveness.

Contemplating what happened on the cross always brings me to the point of tears, because this is my place which the Son of God willingly took. 

There are technical words, like substitutionary atonement (and many more) used all the time in seminaries where ethereal-minded discussions take place to define the events and meaning of Christ’s sacrifice.  But none of it captures the pathos of excruciating pain, both physical and metaphysical, both flesh and spirit.  Only God, speaking from the cross gave the full understanding:  It is finished!

Scripture declares Jesus was the sacrificial Lamb of God.  That plan was known and inevitable from before the foundation of the world. [1] God had always known this, and chose to do this, to become our sacrifice, even before Adam had taken his first breath.  And the words:  It is finished mean the grisly reality that every part of God’s plan to make our redemption a reality was accomplished. 

It is finished is only one word in the Greek text:  Tetelestai.  Its meaning here is anything but dry theological mumbo-jumbo.  It means paid-in-full.  It was the word written across debt notices when those debts were paid-off. 

When Jesus uttered that final word before groaningly commending His spirit to the Father’s keeping, he took every bit of the agony he had suffered and gave it all for the release of the penalty for our sin.  Jesus paid it all!

That was what He finished…completed…and signed in blood on the cross. 

But, while his High Priestly work here on earth was finished, there was something else that was just getting started…the gift of eternal life which he had promised would be ours when we deny self and sin, take-up His cross, and follow Him.

On Good Friday we take the Savior down from Calvary’s tree and put him in Arimithea’s tomb, sealed and guarded by the soldiers.

We are in darkness until the promise of resurrection is filled.

All we have left to ponder is the cross, the blood, the pain, and emptiness of a broken body…quietness and the cold question:  WHAT NOW?

And we wait…AND we will KNOW the cross wasn’t the last time Jesus finished His promised work.  The culmination of God’s plan of redeeming our sin-sick souls will be celebrated in time yet to come; we will hear and know the final finishing word:

And he also said, “It is finished! I am the Alpha and the Omega—the Beginning and the End.  To all who are thirsty I will give freely from the springs of the water of life.  Revelation 21:16

In the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, let the church be quiet…and wait for the savior who paid it all.

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[1] Everyone on earth will worship the beast, if they do not have their names in the book of life. The book of life belongs to the Lamb who was killed. That was God's plan since the world was made.  Revelation 13:8