What was finished? That’s the question that strikes us when we
hear Jesus’ cry from the Cross. What did He mean, when He said,
It is finished?
To
finish something means you’ve completed it. If you’re building a
table for your dining room, you aren’t finished until you’ve
sanded all the pieces, stained them, fit them together, and put a
finish on the finished product. Then you can say the table is
finished. It’s done.
A
long distance runner has finished the race when he crosses the
finish line. The runner’s gone the distance, completed the
course. Once he crosses the line he can say that he’s finished
the race. He’s done. It’s all over. He can rest now.
We
can interpret our Lord’s words, It is finished, in
several ways. Most obviously, you could say that He meant His
sufferings had come to an end. From the time of His betrayal and
arrest the evening before, our Lord Jesus Christ had suffered
horribly. He’d been beaten up several times, first by the Temple
guards who had arrested Him, then by His enemies in the Sanhedrin
after His trial, and finally by the Roman soldiers who’d developed
torture into an art form. He’d been slapped, punched, kicked, had
His beard pulled, survived a brutal scourging, forced to wear a
crown of thorns that bit deep into His scalp, struck in the face
with a rod, and made a mockery of by His tormentors. Who wouldn’t
want abuse like that to come to an end?
But
it wasn’t over yet. Next came the long, grueling, torturous
journey along the Via Dolorosa, the Way of Sorrows, as our Lord
was forced to drag His Cross to the place where He would die.
Considering all He’d been through, it was too much for Him.
Imagine how much blood He’d lost already; think about the agony of
every muscle in His body, every joint and tendon. He collapsed
several times on the way, and a man named Simon of Cyrene was
recruited to get the Cross the rest of the way to Golgotha.
But
once He got to Golgotha there was more. The nails through the
hands and feet, the elevation of the Cross, the jarring thud as it
was dropped into an upright position, the piercing pain of
crucifixion, the struggle for every breath He drew, the fierce,
blazing heat of a sub-tropical climate, the thirst that grew and
grew until it all but consumed Him. And accompanying all these
agonies was the demonic chorus of jeers and catcalls coming from
His enemies. Who wouldn’t want sufferings like Jesus experienced
to come to an end? Who wouldn’t greet death as a welcome friend,
when your bodily existence had become a living hell?
So
with all that in mind, it would be natural to think that Jesus was
referring to the approaching end of His sufferings when He said,
It is finished. The end of His life had come, and a
welcome end it was, since it had to end so horribly, so painfully,
so excruciatingly. That’s one way of interpreting the words our
Lord uttered shortly before He died.
But
that’s an inadequate interpretation. You might say, a grossly
inadequate interpretation. Because it reduces Jesus’ death to
some sort of judicial travesty, some miscarriage of justice that a
good and innocent man should be subjected to a death like His.
It’s to focus on the physical agony of our Lord’s death and to
miss the deeper meaning. It’s to lose sight of the fact that on
the Cross Jesus was actively doing something positive, and He was
doing it not for Himself but for others.
What
He was doing was giving up His life as a ransom for many.
What He was doing was taking up our infirmities and carrying
our sorrows. What He was doing was being stricken,
smitten, and afflicted by God as He was pierced for
our transgressions and crushed for our iniquities. He was
being punished to bring us peace, and being wounded in order to
heal us. The Lord God was laying on Jesus the iniquity of us all
as He became a sin offering to atone for the guilt of the whole
world.
Guilt
and sin. It’s easy to point out the guilt and sin of those
responsible for Jesus’ sufferings and death. The Pharisees and
Sadducees who plotted against Him seeking to destroy Him – there’s
guilt and sin aplenty. Judas who agreed to betray his Master for
thirty pieces of silver – lots of sin and guilt there. The
Sanhedrin who engineered His conviction even though it was obvious
Jesus was innocent – another cargo of sin and guilt. Peter who
denied Him; Pilate who allowed himself to be pressured into
handing Jesus over to be crucified; the soldiers who mocked and
flogged Him; the executioner who did the dirty work of nailing Him
to the Cross; all those who ridiculed Him as He suffered
helplessly – the mountain of sin and guilt gets higher and higher,
doesn’t it?
And
what about you and what about me? Are we blameless in this
affair? Are we innocent bystanders without any role to play in
Jesus’ death?
It’s
easy to blame the Romans for their complicity in the crucifixion
of our Lord Jesus Christ. It’s easy to blame the Jews or Judas.
But His blood is on our hands too. You and I are responsible. It
was our sin that put Jesus on the Cross. It was our failure to
honor God, our failure to love our neighbor in the self-giving,
self-sacrificial way God tells us to. We may not be as hostile to
Jesus as His enemies were, but what about the times we are
indifferent to God’s Word? What about the times we know something
we want to do goes against God’s commandments, but we go ahead and
do it anyway? What about the times we look for some secret,
special sign from God to convince us of His love for us, when all
the while His Word and Sacrament are there for us, waiting to be
used in humble faith, and we don’t think they’re good enough?
We’re like Israel in the wilderness, scorning what God provides us
with because we want something we think is better.
To
fail to hear God’s clear voice in the Scriptures, to fail to see
our need of what God gives us in our Baptism and in the Lord’s
Supper, is to despise the gifts of God. To despise the gifts of
God is to despise God Himself. And to despise God is to despise
our Lord Jesus Christ who is God in the flesh. It’s to despise
His sufferings and death on the Cross on our behalf. It’s to be
an idolater of the worst kind. It’s to take our place among
Jesus’ enemies, mocking Him, hating Him, killing Him, in our own
subtle way.
Every
time we neglect to hear and learn the Word of God, or do it
grudgingly; every time we think lightly of the gift of our Lord’s
Body and Blood in the Sacrament; every time we grow slack in
prayers and thanksgivings, we’re guilty. We’re to blame. I am.
And you are.
But
remember who Jesus died for. For sinners such as us. Remember who
it was He became a sacrifice of atonement for. For half-hearted,
stumbling people like you and me. The Scripture says that
God shows His love for us in that while we were still sinners,
Christ died for us. The Scripture says that while
we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His
Son. It was for Judas He died. It was for the Pharisees
and the Sadducees He died. It was for the Sanhedrin that
condemned Him. It was for Barabbas whose place on the Cross He
took. It was for the bloodthirsty mob that shouted Crucify
Him! It was for Pilate who washed his hands of Jesus and
handed Him over to the executioners. It was for the soldiers who
tortured and killed Him. It was for the disciples who fled when
He was arrested. And it was for you and me, and all the ways we
inadvertently and sometimes deliberately crucify our Lord Jesus
Christ anew, by our sins and compromises, our subtle and
not-so-subtle betrayals. We all, like sheep, have gone
astray, each of us has turned to his own way, but the Lord has
laid on Him the iniquity of us all.
When
Scripture says that Jesus is the Lamb of God who takes away
the sin of the world, it literally means the whole world.
All that sin is on Jesus. He accepts the full load. He takes the
guilt. He takes the punishment. He shed the blood that cleanses
sinners of their sin. He suffers God’s wrath and condemnation in
our place. He is cursed by God in order to win our forgiveness.
He does the work of saving us, reconciling us, justifying us,
making us sinners acceptable to God for the sake of His bitter
sufferings and death. Through faith in Him we enter the paradise
of God’s grace and mercy and salvation. Jesus, Jesus, only
Jesus. He does for us what we cannot do ourselves.
The
work is done, completed, finished. Think of your Savior’s words,
It is finished! as heaven’s absolution of all your
guilt and sin, because that’s exactly what they are. You don’t
absolve yourself. Jesus absolves you, through His Cross and your
Baptism into His death and resurrection. He absolves you when the
Pastor’s Word of His forgiveness is spoken to you. He absolves
you when His Body and Blood are placed into your mouth. I forgive
you, Jesus says to you in His Gospel. Your Father in heaven has
reconciled you to Himself. Depart in peace. You are free.
It is finished means the prison-door of sin, death, and
hell has swung wide open, and you have been set free. You are
forgiven. Your guilt is gone. Your shame is gone. Your sin is
gone. Your death is gone. You are safe in Jesus forever. Safe
in His death. Safe in His resurrection. Safe in your Baptism.
Safe in your heavenly Father’s eternal care. It is
finished. Jesus finished the work of salvation for you.
In Nomine Patris. . .
