"Now It Is Finished"

"Now it is finished." These words of Jesus tell us much about the person and work of Christ. Why did God send the Christ, God's Son and our Lord, into the world? The words, "Now it is finished," hint at something, a project, a process, a plan of some kind that was somehow completed at the death of our Savior. And Jesus Christ knew this even in the dreadful agony of hanging there on the cross. "Now it is finished," those amazing words uttered by our Lord, tell us that Christ's crucifixion on the cross was the completion of something wonderful that God had initiated, perhaps with creation, itself. For if Christ said, "It is finished," we can assume that "it also had a beginning." But the question that we can ask is, "What was it?"

As we read the scriptures, starting with the book of Genesis, we get the distinct impression that God has been in a constant struggle with humanity to bridge a gap that exists between humanity and God since the beginning of time. The story of Adam and Eve in the garden and the fall of humanity isn't simply a story about two persons who lived in a garden thousands of years ago. Rather, it is our story. It is a story about each one of us, for we are all Adam and Eve. In each of our lives, we find the story taking place over and over again. For how many times in our lives have we experienced Eden only to see it taken away because we have chosen, either willfully or because of ignorance, to rebell against the wisdom and will of our Lord?

We've done it over and over again. How often the story gets played out in our lives! And, yet, amazingly, and just as often, God gracefully continues to struggle with us to redeem us, to bring us back into relationship with him, to accomplish atonement, to bring about oneness and Eden, once again! God's struggle to redeem us was a struggle to bridge the gap. And so God sent His Son Jesus Christ into the world to be our friend and our Savior, to offer us a Way back to oneness through faith in him. When Jesus was crucified upon the cross the apparatus of salvation was completed. It was finished.

The Bible is full of stories about God's struggle to redeem, to save, to atone and of how people like us have responded. And, again, those stories are ours, as well. We can claim them all. For how often have we not experienced the power of God's love in our life as we have read the stories of God's salvation? The account of the Exodus is the story of our life. The entrance into the Promised Land is ours, as well. The story of Daniel in the Lion's Den is our own experience. The story of the Annunciation is just as much ours as we accept our own responsibility to bear Christ to the world. And, just as Christ died upon the cross for those he loved back then, so he dies for us, tonight, as we come near to the cross by faith.

"It is finished." God's great work of salvation has been accomplished. And now it is our task to believe and to live a faithful, loving life for Jesus' sake.

Amen.