The Sixth Word from the Cross
It is finished. John 19:30
In John’s Gospel, the moment of Jesus’ death is connected with the words ‘it is finished’. In Greek, it is actually one word – tetelestai. That word is very important indeed. The same word is used in John 19:28, when the writer says, ‘After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished…’
‘Finished’ is a strange word in the English language. Today, I will be conducting the Three Hours devotion in Grey Abbey church. It can be a gruelling devotion for a preacher to lead. I wonder what someone enquiring about the length of the sermon afterwards will make of it when the answer is “About 90 minutes”! Most people can’t last for the entire three hours – they come and go. Even some leaders sneak into the vestry during one of the times of silence for a quick coffee! Then we realize the cruel painfulness of the long three hours Jesus actually spent in weakness and dereliction on the cross of Calvary. Our sitting in comfort in a church is nothing by comparison. Even the preacher leading is nothing by comparison. But I do admit to sometimes thinking at this point, when we arrive at the sixth word ‘It’s nearly over!’
When Jesus says ‘It is finished’ on the cross, he does not mean ‘It’s nearly over’, nor does he mean ‘the time is up’. He means something more like ‘It is completed’ or ‘It is accomplished’.
Another word which carries the same confusion in English, is the word ‘end’. When we see the word ‘The End’ after a movie, we think, simply ‘It’s over’, but the word can be used quite differently: ‘the end of what I was doing was….’. That carries a different meaning. ‘End’ there means ‘purpose’. That’s what the word means earlier in John’s Gospel when the writer says, ‘Having loved his own who were in the world, (Jesus) loved them to the end.‘The Greek word here is telos, from which we get the word ‘teleology’ in English (look it up!). It means, he loved them right through till the purpose of his mission was completely fulfilled.
Thomas Cranmer, when compiling the Book of Common Prayer, was a great fan of doublets in his writing. For example, in the penitential introduction to Morning and Evening Prayer: ‘sins and wickednesses’, dissemble nor cloke’, ‘erred and strayed’, ‘devices and desires’. But when he comes to the heart of the Gospel, the finished word of Christ on the Cross, he uses his only double triplet, when he writes of the one ‘full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice oblation and satisfaction’ for the sins of the whole world. Every single one of those words is worth meditating on this Good Friday.
All of this means that the cry, ‘It is finished’ is not a cry of despair, nor is it a cry of hopelessness or exhaustion. It is a cry of VICTORY! Jesus has completed in his death the task the Father set for him to do: achieving the salvation of the world. He has remained obedient to death, even death on the cross. He has stayed in his Father’s will to the very end, even when he was tempted to choose otherwise. He has borne the sins of the whole world, offering himself as the sacrifice to end all sacrifices. No longer do we need to offer up sacrifices for sins, as the Jewish people of the Old Testament did! Isaac Watts put it like this in one of his brilliant hymns:
‘It is finished’ is the great Good Friday victory–cry! All is accomplished. All is complete. His work of salvation is done. There is no possible outcome other than the Resurrection!