John 19:16-30
“It Is Finished”
By: Ken Sauer, Pastor of East Ridge UMC, Chattanooga, TN eastridgeumc.org
We often speak of the Cross of Jesus Christ as a stark tragedy; as the most awful, wicked, and “out of place” thing that ever happened on this planet.
And, in a sense, we are right!
Almighty God comes to earth, lives as a human among humans—and is whipped, spat upon, pierced with nails, and hung on a tree to die—by the very creatures He created!!!
It’s almost too shocking to be credible!
It is indeed, the most ‘out of place thing’ which has ever happened on this planet.
And yet, while that is true, it is only half the truth.
Even though it seems as if it just doesn’t fit…well…in some ways it does fit.
Did not Jesus tell us in John Chapter 15: “My command is this: Love each other as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends.”
Jesus has shown us the greatest love of all…
…proving God’s love for us!
The first explanation Jesus ever made about His dying—after He had risen from the dead—was while He was walking to Emmaus with two disciples who didn’t recognize Him and who were stunned by all that happened on Calvary…
…Jesus was trying to explain to them why the Cross had to be…
… “Did not the Christ have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?”
In other words… “Can’t you see the fittingness of this?”
“Don’t you see that this is what had to happen… ‘For God so loved the world.’”
In Hebrews we are told about Jesus that: “he had to be made like [you and I] in every way.”
And in the same letter we read: “In bringing many [children] to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the author of their salvation perfect through suffering.”
It was fitting.
So there is this wild paradox…
…a great crime; a great love.
The world’s worst; heaven’s best!
And so as He hung from the Cross, “knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture might be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.”
“I am thirsty”…
…Where have we heard that before?
Oh, I know. It was back about 15 Chapters earlier.
Jesus was on a journey through Samaria, and “tired as he was from the journey” He sat down by a well.
And a woman, an outcaste, a lost and lonely soul came to the well at the very same time and Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?,” but we never do find out how long it takes for Jesus to get a drink from that well because Jesus and the woman get into a long conversation…
…and then Jesus offers the woman something He calls “living water,” and she hasn’t a clue what He’s talking about!
But Jesus tells this woman that the living water He will give her will quench her thirst forever.
And since, in ordinary everyday language, to a Jew the term living water meant water from a stream…
…the woman took Him literally.
But Jesus wasn’t talking about physical water was He?
He was speaking metaphorically.
For the Jews had another way of using the word “water.”
They often spoke of the “thirst” of the “soul” for God; and they often spoke of quenching this thirst with “living water.”
Anyway, at the heart of all this, there is the fundamental truth that in the human heart there is a thirst for something that only Jesus Christ can satisfy!!!
Yeah, this goes way beyond just regular old thirst.
We are all thirsty, are we not?
And we are all going to try and quench our thirst with something.
Lots of young people try and quench their thirst with drugs and alcohol, but they find themselves even more thirsty and unhappy than before…
…but the cycle continues because they continue to thirst.
Other people try to quench their thirst with big paying jobs, big expensive houses, big fancy cars…
…yeah, we like BIG…
…‘Cause we have got a BIG thirst…
…but no matter what we do we are always thirsty again, are we not?
Sometimes, as Christians, we miss our daily devotional schedule, and take a long time to get back on track.
And we find ourselves becoming thirsty.
Perhaps, we have started to become kind of “spotty” in our church attendance…
…and we find that we are thirsty for something…
…we are not as satisfied as we once were.
Several years ago, I was getting a bit spiritually thirsty.
I bought a devotional book by Laurence Stookey called: This Day: A Wesleyan Way of Prayer.
And the very first time I started using that book it had me reading the 42nd Psalm.
And as I began to read that Psalm…
…I began to pray that Psalm…
…and tears started running down my face…
…and I knew what I had been missing so badly…
…that Psalm became so very real to me…
…so real that I will never be able to read it the same way again…
… “As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.”
Does your soul thirst for God…for the living God?
Mine does…mine does every day!!!
And praise God it does.
For there is a real “Living Water.”
There is water that becomes, in a person who believes in Christ for salvation, “a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Of course, all this heightens our horror and awe, at the thought of Jesus Himself being “thirsty.”
Here Jesus is, thirsty; and they give Him the low-grade sour wine that the soldiers drank.
Jesus gave others the best wine.
Jesus was “thirsty.”
Had the water of life failed?
Had the wine run out for good?
He saved others; could He not save Himself?
But as with the crown of thorns and the mocking purple robe—this is part of the truth of it all.
This is how Jesus must do what only
Jesus can do!
Jesus must come to the place where we all are…
…the place of thirst, shame and death.
And do you suppose it’s possible, as well, that “knowing that all was now [finally] completed” Jesus Christ began to think about the very near future?
That He began to think about the Paradise that lay ahead?
Maybe He could even see the “River of Life” written about in the Book of Revelation, and that caused Him to say: “I am thirsty.”
And perhaps He saw what we see when we read Revelation chapter 7 that the people who believe in Jesus…that the folks who have endured this often difficult life and who have “washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb”…
…that they prove that what Christ was enduring on the Cross would not be in vain because Christ Himself will one day lead all who are saved “to springs of living water.”
I want to be there, don’t you?
In the despair of the final moments, comes another cry from Jesus.
Near the moment of Jesus’ death Jesus makes a pronouncement that some at the time may have thought was the cry of defeat…
…but in reality, it was the great cry of Victory!!!
“It is FINISHED!”
“It is all done!”
“It’s complete!”
Jesus has finished the work that the Father had given Him to do.
Jesus has loved us to the very end.
Jesus has accomplished the task.
The word translated as “It is finished” is actually a single word in the original language.
It’s the word that people would write on a bill after the bill had been paid off.
The bill for our salvation has been paid in full!!!
Jesus’ work is now complete.
And it is upon this finished and complete work that we can, from that day to this, stake our entire lives!!!
Whoever believes in Christ will live even though they die, and whoever lives and believes in Jesus Christ will never die.
Do you believe this?
Amen.
