The SIGN of FINALITY
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
Jesus said, “It is finished!” John 19:30
“Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” Luke 23:46
Dear fellow redeemed in Christ our Lord… Fifteen hundred years ago St. Anselm, the Archbishop of Canterbury, ascended his pulpit on Good Friday and said: “I do not know if I wish to speak today. Why should I speak when my Savior is silent and dies?” Certainly every preacher has felt much the same way. All he can really ask his people to do is think quietly and personally about the meaning of the Cross, now that the great drama draws to its close.
Today, therefore, we wish to consider, in Good Friday humility and silence, two sentences at the very close of the scene on Calvary. They are probably the greatest in all the history of human speech. They cover all of life and the shadow of death. The first is: “It is finished!” By this we can live. The second is: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” By this we can die. To meditate on these two sentences is a very good way to spend Good Friday.
Let us examine the setting. It is now about three o’clock in the afternoon. The crowd has become quiet, for even mobs become still when death is at hand. Suddenly our Lord’s head raises up once more under the crown of thorns, and in a loud voice He cried, “It is finished!” The meaning of this sentence must be perfectly clear to all of us. To the Pharisees standing around the cross and to the Roman soldiers these words must have sounded like the crack of doom. Had they after all lost? They were killing Him, but He seemed to express that He had won a victory.
If they had eyes to see and ears to hear, those Pharisees and soldiers would have seen each thorn in His crown become a shining gem in His diadem of glory. They would have seen the nails forged into the scepter of a king. They would have seen His wounds clothe Him with the purple of empire. He had won a great, final, and eternal victory. The world was changed. Until the end of time history would now be divided into before and after this event. From this moment on, there could be no neutrality. From this moment on Jesus would be either a stone of stumbling or the Way to Life.
If we look more closely at our Lord’s dying words, “It is finished,” we see that He is not referring to the fact that His agony is now ended or that the hatred, the pain, or the heart broken with sorrow are now done and set aside forever. Nor is He merely saluting death as so many brave men have done before and since Good Friday. Jesus is not merely saying good-by to life. No, this is the cry of a worker whose work was done, the cry of a soldier whose warfare was ended, the cry of a Savior whose work of paying for the world’s sins had been accomplished.
For proof of this we can, of course, turn to the pages of Holy Scripture to find echoes of His final cry. St. Paul wrote to the Philippians (2:9), “Wherefore God also hath highly exalted Him and given Him a name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow.” There are many passages like this.
Tonight, however, we point to another proof which reflects the full meaning of His words, “It is finished.” We turn for a moment to our Lord’s enemies, some of whom are in the churches of Christendom still today. They are one of the great testimonies to His continuing power. They simply cannot leave Him alone. His enemies still hate Him. Men do not hate the dead, because hate dies when the object hated dies. But they still clench their fists against Christ. They say He is helpless and dead, but they pour out literature against Him and His church. They construe philosophies of government and life bent on shutting Him out. They clench their fists when His very name is mentioned because He still has a mysterious hold over men and life and time.
The English poet Francis Thompson in “The Hound of Heaven” writes a line which sums it all up. He points clearly to the reason why men still look at Jesus strangely as He passes by in life and in history. For time and eternity it is true, as Thompson says, “All things betray thee who betrayest Me.” That’s it! All things betray man when he betrays his Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. All the good things in life which He made – love and laughter and sunshine and health – become dust and ashes without Him. On Good Friday more men and women know it than on any other day of the year. Once more they feel the strange, mysterious power of His words, “It is finished!”
Kamagra increases the blood flow in the viagra pills wholesale penis. Erection problems occur when cialis discounts you do not achieve it at all. Generally, levitra 20mg price Full Article these health care professionals maintain a unique focus on spinal manipulation and treatment of surrounding structures (such as muscles, ligaments, discs, joints). Growing age is one of the reasons for reduced semen volume. http://robertrobb.com/another-phoenix-by-invitation-only-election/ free samples of viagra We who by His grace and pity have made His victory our victory can now live on by His cry, “It is finished!” Our sins are paid for. Our souls are cleansed. Our broken lives are complete, finished, and made whole by Him who loved us in such a way that He would rather die than be without us. His cry, “It is finished,” makes it clear that we, too, join in His victory.
Most people know that the greatest continuing and haunting sorrow of life is its sense of incompleteness, of unfinished tasks, of things that we would like to do and cannot do. Life is full of loose ends and frayed edges. We often say, “This is done and finished,” but what we mean to say is, “It’s the best I can do for now. Perhaps someday I’ll be able to do better.” So the end of anything in life is never really complete and final. Time and life are much too fluid for that.
Here, however, on the cross we have in the long story of our incompleteness and imperfection one task that was done completely, finally, perfectly, and absolutely. The work of our Lord from the first cry in the manger to the last cry on the cross was a divine symphony coming to its final and inevitable end. “It is finished!” And with the finishing of His task our sins are paid for, and we can stand before God in the complete perfection of His atoning life and work.
The second sentence of our Lord is equally important as the other one: “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” The words of a dying person are always highly significant. If you have ever been at the bedside of a dying loved one, you will never, ever forget their last words; they sear themselves into your brain.
With our Lord’s last word, His head goes up once more and He is facing His heavenly Father alone. The crowd has been forgotten. The pain of the crucifixion is almost in the past. He has commended His spirit into the hands of His heavenly Father. All the angels rejoice because the one poor thief with Him is the first of a long procession of men and women who will storm the gates of heaven with His blood covering their sins and His love bringing them home. By faith in His atoning work we, too, will join them.
Think for a moment of a parent putting his or her child to bed. The child protests and pleads to stay up just a little longer. There are so many things still to be done. When the final word comes to us, we will be the same way. Toward the twilight of our lives we will hear a voice saying to us: “It is time to go to sleep. It is time to lay aside all the little things you worked on in life – all your plans and dreams. It is time for you to say your prayers and go to sleep.” And we will ask for just a little more time, a few more hours or days of life.
But then something great and wonderful and eternal will happen just as it happened to our Lord on Good Friday. We, too, will commend our spirit into the hands of our heavenly Father. And as it was for Him, so also it will be for us. There will be another morning – the great morning of God. We will wake up to see something very splendid and very beautiful. We will close our eyes in this world and open them in the life of the world to come and see that our Lord has finished all our tasks for us. They have been finished by hands that once were pierced by nails. His work is finished; nothing more needs to be done to secure our salvation.
One final thought… When we come to the altar to receive Christ’s body and blood, we do so as those called to saving faith. We have been brought to believe, by God’s rich grace alone, that He has given His only-begotten Son to die for us and for His sake we have the forgiveness of sins. We come to the altar knowing and believing that Christ is truly present with His body and blood under the bread and wine. We believe that we are sinners, unworthy to receive anything from God, but we also believe that He Himself makes us worthy to come to His altar, and that by grace alone through faith alone we receive Christ for forgiveness, life, and salvation.
When we return from the altar, we sing those wonderful words of Simeon who was told by God that he would not see death until he had seen the Lord’s Christ. And when the holy family came to the temple on Simeon’s assigned day, Simeon took up the Lord Jesus in his arms and burst forth with the words of the Nunc Dimittis: “Lord now lettest thou Thy servant depart in peace according to Thy word.” Finally, he could depart in peace, having seen the Lord’s Christ and having been the recipient of the most marvelous gift of God’s grace.
You and I sing Simeon’s words for the same exact reason he sang them – we have beheld Christ in His body and blood in the Sacrament, and we, like Simeon, can also “depart in peace.” That truth is also embedded in the table dismissal in the words, “Depart in peace,” to which you get to add your “Amen.”
Christ’s final words as a man were, “Father, into Thy hands I commend My spirit.” Because of His work, when we die, we too can say those words. Certainly, there is no better way to die than that: at peace, and into God’s hands for eternity with Christ.
In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.
