It Is Finished
Good Friday – April 2, 2010
“It is finished.” - Three short words, but they carry so much meaning.
“It is finished.” - the last words Jesus speaks from the cross as he bows his head and gives up his spirit.
“It is finished.” - words that echo in the ears and minds and hearts of his disciples, words that probably rang within them from the moment Jesus was taken into custody by the powers that be. For as Jesus was led away, it must have seemed that everything was coming to an end. All of their hopes and dreams, all of their visions of a brighter future under Jesus, their true king, came crashing down.
It is finished. It must have seemed finished to Peter too, with his heartfelt promises to follow Jesus anywhere, even if it meant laying down his life for him, dashed when cold reality snuck in and he found himself denying he even knew his dearest friend and teacher three times. Peter must have felt that he himself was finished, as everything he thought he knew about himself turned out, in that moment, to be wrong, to be false.
It is finished, words the women standing at the foot of the cross heard, all of those women – Mary, the mother of Jesus, her sister, Mary, the wife of Clopas, Mary Magdalene, watching and waiting, beyond grief as those words fell from his lips. All the joy and hope and friendship they had shared with Jesus, this man who treated them as equals, as people, gone with his breath. And as they stood there and watched this all unfold, it must have seemed like the end of all that was good in the world to them.
It is finished. You hear the finality of these words in John's writing, as he shows us Joseph of Arimathea and Nicodemus coming to take Jesus' body down from the cross, carrying it to the tomb, laying him there in that place, because it was nearby, and it was the Jewish day of Preparation. There was no time to make any arrangements, no time to plan a funeral, no time for a proper burial. It all happened so suddenly, and time was short before the sabbath. So the stone was rolled into place, and that's the end of tonight's story. Jesus' life, all he stood for, all the dreams he represented – over. It is finished.
These Good Friday moments are familiar to us, the times when the world around us whispers, “it is finished.” We are no strangers to the situations that seem to scream, “It's too late. It's over. It is finished.” Those terrifying moments in the doctor's office when we get the diagnosis of a deadly or life-shattering disease. The day when your spouse says, “I want a divorce.” The loss of a job. The storms, literal and metaphorical, that come in and uproot our lives or wash our well thought-out plans for the future away in a flood. The days of self-doubt, or of regret, or of guilt when we are tempted to say, “It is finished,” and bow our heads and give up... The darkness and despair that Peter and Judas and the women at the cross and all of the other disciples felt – we have felt it too, as we have stood in the shadow of the cross and heard nothing but the silence of the nearby tomb, holding the corpse of all we once hoped in. We know too well the sorrow and grief and mourning that are at the heart of this Good Friday story.
And yet the words, “It is finished,” are not the end of the story. Because the words, “It is finished,” don't just refer to the end of Jesus' life. They don't stand simply for grief and hopelessness. No, these words, “it is finished,” as hard as they may be to hear, are also words that fill we who believe with hope. That's because when Jesus hung on the cross and said, “It is finished,” he wasn't just talking about the end of his life. When Jesus said, “it is finished,” what he also meant is, “It is completed.” All of the work he was sent here to do by the Father – there on the cross, he brought it to fruition. “For God so loved the world that he gave his only Son, so that everyone who believes in him may not perish but may have eternal life. Indeed, God did not send the Son into the world to condemn the world, but in order that the world might be saved through him” (Jn. 3:16-17).
When Jesus said, “it is finished,” he meant, “Mission accomplished!” This is not a sigh of defeat, but a cry of victory from the one who was sent into the world to save it from itself.
The words, “it is finished,” are a declaration about all of the things that we fear in this world, all of the things that separate us from God and keep us from having the loving, trusting relationship with God that God has designed us for from the very beginning. Hanging on the cross, Jesus says to the strength of suffering and sin – you are finished! To the inertia of injury and injustice – you are finished! To the forces of fear and famine, you are finished! To the dominion of disease and death – you are finished!
There on the cross, the battle between good and evil, between light and darkness, between love and hate, and yes, between life and death came to an end. It is finished, and we know who won!
We know who won, and we'll hear the rest of that story on Sunday. And because the battle is already won, the victory already decided, on those days when the world says to us, “it is finished,” we can look to Good Friday, and say “Yes, it is finished – but I am not. Jesus finished it for me there on the cross.” And if he was willing to die for us, we know he'll never abandon us no matter what else we may face.
It is finished.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
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