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                      

Is IT Really Finished?

 

Tuesday, April 19, 2022

Give thanks to the Lord, for he is good!  His faithful love endures forever.  Psalm 118:1

I attended a friend’s church last Saturday evening.  Pastor Michael’s sermon was an inspiring recounting of the transition that flows from the cross, as Jesus proclaimed those fateful words:  It is finished.  That flow turned the typical Easter din of “cross, grave, empty tomb….and (yawn from getting up too early for sunrise service) to now what else?  The sermon was:  It is Finished; but He is Not![1] 

The message centered around the Greek word tetelestai, from which we translate into English “it is finished…or completed”.  The word is military in origin, as in a completed mission.  It was also used in antiquity as a legal tool for debts.  When a debt was fully-paid the debt-holder would write TETELESTAI across the original document, as testament to the honorable completing of all claims.  This is the word shouted from the cross by Jesus…completed…nothing else required.  That is true beyond question, as Scripture declares over and again that His death was propitiation for our sins…paid-in-full. 

But what of the last part…IT was finished…but HE is NOT?  The crux of Micael’s message rested on the fact (again rooted in Scripture) that the completed work of the cross was but the firstfruits of what was to come.  To summarize, it means Christ died once, for all sins; but He’s still working with us (and on us) to develop who we are…we are being transformed into His image.

This concept isn’t new.  Any believer who has entered the world of discipleship, following Jesus with prayer, presence in worship, meaningful stewardship of tithes and offerings, learning to serve others in the community, and being a faithful witness, has an understanding that Christ is anything but finished working on us.  He is bringing us to a mature stature in His character.  For all of us, THAT takes a considerable transformation.  It’s what apostle Paul meant when he wrote to the church at Ephesus:

This will continue until we all come to such unity in our faith and knowledge of God’s Son that we will be mature in the Lord, measuring up to the full and complete standard of Christ.  Ephesians 4:13

Now, here’s the candy of it all – it isn’t something we HAVE to do…it what we GET to do!  It’s like this:  Elizabeth and I have struggled all our lives to make a monthly mortgage payment.  We never quite got there in the first four houses we bought.  By the time we got to this fifth house, we settled on a 15 year mortgage.  It was paid-off several years ago – I don’t think they actually wrote tetelestai on the mortgage paper – but we did get a letter of thanks from the mortgage company saying our debt was over.  It was finished.  But we are not.  We get to live in the house now.  Elizabeth gets to (within reason) redecorate and rearrange.  Russell gets to repair and take care of cutting the grass. 

And that is what Jesus did with your eternity.  He’s given us a place and a purpose that is as secure as the promise of that empty tomb.  And He’s given us freedom to create (with him) all the beauty that life holds in promise.

For You Today

Two great truths to rest on here:

·       IT (the payment of debt for your sins) is finished.  Receive that gift, and cherish it!

·       YOUR walk with Christ through an eternity of blessing is just getting started, because his faithful love endures forever!

You chew on that as you hit the Rocky Road; have a blessed day!  

[1] Title image: Pixabay.com   Unless noted, Scripture quoted from The New Living Translation^©  

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[1] You can listen to the sermon here