Finished!

“After Jesus had taken the vinegar, he said, ‘It is finished!’ Then he bowed his head and died.” John 19:30

A good friend of mine in our church told me how he likes to read the stories in the Bible. “I like to imagine myself right there, in the middle of what is happening,” he said. “It helps me get a feel for what is happening, and what the people were experiencing at that time.”

I think he is right. It is easy to read Jesus’ last statement from the cross, “It is finished!” and go directly to all the doctrinal points about Him completing God’s plan of redemption and announcing it with this victory statement. Having been well-taught in church all our lives, we might lose the immediate impact of those words upon those who first heard it.

So, let’s imagine. I’m not sure which character to assume, watching the horrid hours as Jesus suffered and finally died on Golgotha. Crucified between two thieves, He forgives those who have nailed him to the cross, cries out in thirst, delivers His mother into a disciple’s care, invites one of the thieves to meet Him in Paradise, and finally says, “It is finished.” And yes, the word can be translated, “Accomplished.”

But, our English word, “finished” can have the same connotation. We can talk about a project we have labored over, and finally completed, and will say to someone, “It’s finished!” But, depending on the context, we might also use the word to describe a defeat of some sort. Our favorite football team is down 48-0 with only the two-minute warning left, and we say about the game, “It’s finished.” We mean, “Our team is toast!”

I do not think anyone at the cross that Friday thought Jesus had accomplished anything when they heard His final words. He exhales two syllables, bows His head and dies. One Roman soldier hears it and declares, “Surely this was the Son of God (or a son of God”. But I doubt even he thought there was much “accomplished” as this “King of the Jews” spoke those final words.

The Scriptures tell us the disciples all ran away. They were scattered like dust kicked up by helicopter blades. They didn’t hang around to contemplate the various possibilities of “Finished”. For them it meant, “It’s over!” They heard no triumphant call that day. They were not able to imagine anything at all positive being accomplished once Jesus died on that cross.

Yet, now, on our side of the cross, which also includes our knowledge that Jesus rose from the dead, we are able to hear the words differently. We now hear “It is Finished”, and our heart can leap because we know that sin and death were conquered. God’s eternal plan to forgive rebellious humans and grant them life above and beyond mere temporal existence was now completely carried out.

This seems to be God’s favorite modus operandi. More often than not, God’s rescues come in the form of little boy lunches to feed thousands or a handful of mud and spit to heal a blind man. God allows Joseph to spend his most productive years rejected by his family, kidnapped by traders, and imprisoned under false charges. And yet, time and time again in Joseph’s story we read, “And God was with him.” With a rock, God provided water to the throngs of Hebrews in the desert.

We must not misinterpret these events. We sometimes think God has not acted until the time we finally have come out of our crisis. Once we “arrive alive” we say, “God was with me.” But that does not seem to be what the Biblical stories are trying to tell us. And it certainly isn’t what the crucifixion is portraying. It is not as if the devil nearly won the game when Jesus died, but God pulled off a Hail Mary at the end of the last quarter with the resurrection. Booyah, devil. Look at that! Jesus is alive, spike that ball, it’s all over, we win.

Don’t get me wrong; the resurrection is necessary for God’s plan. Jesus conquered death on behalf of us all. But His announcement that things were “accomplished” came at the darkest moment. When everyone was ready to say, “It’s over, all is lost”, God was saying, “It is Finished!”

We must stop the nonsense of thinking God is absent when our apple-cart is overturned and only on the scene when the apples are shiny and set out in neat rows for all to see. If, at the moment of His death, Jesus could say of His work for the Father, “It is Finished”, then perhaps we should begin to acknowledge His victory in the dark moments. My emotions and my circumstances must never be the measure of God’s power or plan.