Well, good evening.
Tonight we'll take a few minutes to look at John chapter 19,
the crucifixion in the Gospel of John.
And I want to begin by reading the story of Christ's crucifixion.
If you want to follow along, you can turn your Bibles to John chapter 19, verse 1.
It's a lengthy passage, otherwise you're welcome to listen as I read it.
It says this,
Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him.
And the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe.
They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands.
Pilate went out again and said to them,
See, I am bringing him out to you so that you may know that I find no guilt in him.
So Jesus came out wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe.
Pilate said to them, Behold the man.
When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him.
Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him.
The Jews answered him, We have a law.
And according to that law, he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.
When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid.
He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from?
But Jesus gave him no answer.
So Pilate said to him, You will not speak to me?
Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you?
Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above.
Therefore, he who delivered me over to you has the greater sin.
From then on, Pilate sought to release him.
But the Jews cried out, If you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend.
Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar.
So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement.
And in Aramaic, Gabbatha.
Now it was the day of preparation of the Passover.
It was about the sixth hour.
He said to the Jews, Behold your king.
They cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him.
Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king?
The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar.
So he delivered him over to them to be crucified.
So they took Jesus and he went out bearing his own cross to the place called the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha.
There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side and Jesus between them.
Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross.
It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews.
Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city.
And it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek.
So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews,
but rather, this man said, I am the king of the Jews.
Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.
When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts,
one part for each soldier, also his tunic.
But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.
So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see whose it shall be.
This was to fulfill the scripture which says,
They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots.
Now I am going to verse 28.
After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said, to fulfill the scripture,
I thirst.
A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch
and held it to his mouth.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, It is finished.
And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
So this evening, it's a long passage, but I want to focus our attention on Jesus' last statement
in verse 30.
It is finished.
In the original language, that is only one word.
And it's the same word that we find two verses earlier in 1928,
when Jesus knew that all was now finished.
The word finish in English can mean several different things.
But in the original Greek, it means to complete a task or to accomplish something.
It's used throughout the Gospels.
Jesus finished speaking to the crowds.
Jesus finished instructing his disciples.
He finished speaking his parables.
He completed, same word, his baptism.
And here in this passage, Jesus is not saying that his life is over, although it is.
He means that he has finished his task.
That he has done what he set out to do.
That he has completed his job.
It's an incredibly important statement, and I want to look at it from three different angles tonight.
First, the irony that it is finished.
Second, the claim that it is finished.
And third, the invitation to what is finished.
First of all, the irony.
The irony means that we say one thing or do one thing when the opposite is really true.
It's used sometimes for comedy, sometimes to emphasize something,
sometimes an author will use it to surprise us or to make sure that we notice something,
to kind of surprise us into seeing what's there.
In this passage that I just read, it's full of irony.
Let me just give you a couple of examples.
First, they mock him and call him king.
In verse 3, the soldiers put a crown of thorns on his head, a painful crown of thorns,
and they say, Hail, king of the Jews.
And in verse 19, Pilate puts a sign above Jesus on the cross that reads,
Jesus, king of the Jews.
They're mocking him.
But the irony is, he really is the king of the Jews.
He is the long-awaited Davidic messianic king promised in the Old Testament.
And in the book of John, it emphasizes this.
In John 1.49, Nathaniel says to Jesus,
You are the king of the Jews.
And in chapter 3, Jesus says, I am bringing in the kingdom.
And in 1836, Jesus says, My kingdom is not of this world.
They're mocking him by calling him the king,
but ironically, they're speaking better than they know,
because he really is the king of the Jews.
A second irony is that the Jewish leaders went to kill him
because he claims to be the son of God.
They say in verse 7 to Pilate,
We have a law.
Look, we're not just dragging this guy before you because we've had a bad day.
We have a law.
And according to that law,
he ought to die because he has made himself the son of God.
They want to kill him
because he's claiming to be God's son.
But the irony is obvious.
He is God's son.
It says in John 1.14,
He is the only son from the Father.
In 1.34, John the Baptist says,
This is the son of God.
And in that most famous verse in John 3.16,
For God so loved the world that he gave his only son.
The third irony is that the Jewish leaders claim to be model Roman citizens.
The Jews hated the Roman Empire.
It levied oppressive taxes on them.
It murdered them.
It enslaved them.
It restricted their worship of God.
And they hated Caesar,
who conquered and oppressed them.
But in verse 15,
they say,
Jesus is not our king.
We have no king but Caesar.
Wow.
They would rather have an oppressive Roman Caesar as their king,
a murderous Gentile pagan,
than Jesus.
And the irony is that they are rejecting God's promised salvation
and all that that entails
by claiming allegiance to the enemy that oppresses them
and whom they hate.
Jesus is the whole basis and goal of their faith.
He alone brings God's grace and forgiveness.
And they're not just rejecting Jesus as king either.
They say,
We have no king but Caesar.
In some ways,
they're rejecting any messianic king.
They are trading away all of God's promises
and plan of salvation
just to get rid of Jesus.
But the greatest irony comes in verse 30.
That's our statement.
Jesus has been mocked and beaten
and nailed to wood.
And as his body shuts down
and he breathes his last,
he says,
It is finished.
It is accomplished.
It looks like his ultimate defeat.
But the irony is
that it is his ultimate victory.
Think about this for a minute.
Imagine a man who builds a house
and it takes him three years.
And over the course of that three years,
he lays the foundation,
he puts up the studs,
he puts in the electrical,
he runs the plumbing,
he puts in the HVAC,
he puts on the drywall,
he paints,
he puts in the trim,
he puts in the windows and doors and the roof.
He works and works and works for three years.
And then he stands back
and he looks upon his creation
and he spent three years of toil building
and he says to his friend,
And just then,
just then the house collapses.
Right in front of his eyes,
it just collapses in a pile of rubble.
It's all been for nothing.
And then he turns to his friend and he says,
I have completed my task.
What?
That's crazy.
That's not finishing.
That's failing.
And here's Jesus.
He has lived a sinless life.
He teaches the people all over Israel
and promises them God's salvation.
He does great miracles,
examples what it will look like
when he reigns as king.
He feeds people
and heals people.
He gives sight to the blind
and he makes the lame walk.
He raises people from the dead.
He argues with the religious leaders.
He calls his disciples to follow him
and promises them an everlasting inheritance
in heaven.
He is the Christ,
the Messiah,
the Son of God
who has come to save the world.
And then suddenly,
he is arrested.
And his followers scatter.
And now here he is,
hanging on a wooden cross,
naked.
His limbs are nailed to pieces of wood
and all around him,
instead of a crowd of worshipers,
there are people laughing at him.
And as he dies,
he says,
I have completed my work.
I mean,
how could it look any more
like a failure than that?
He is being executed.
His enemies have killed him.
And in his last moments,
he dares to say
that he has accomplished
what he set out to do.
But that is the irony.
Because he has completed his task.
His kingdom does not come
by political maneuvers
or whether he's been able
to achieve a 50%
in the polling.
It's not about the biggest crowd.
He has come to die.
That was his task.
It's a mission of sacrifice
and humiliation
and weakness.
And when he says from the cross,
it is finished,
it's not a cry of defeat.
It's not an announcement
that he's finally dying.
He is not a victim.
He is doing something here.
He's not only doing something purposefully,
but he's accomplishing it.
He has completed the job
that he set out to do
even though it looks like the opposite.
And what is that job?
Well, that's the second angle
that I want to look at.
The claim.
The claim that it is finished.
All great stories have a climax.
And the Bible,
even though it's very long
and very varied,
has one grand story
from start to finish,
from Genesis to Revelation,
one grand story
of God's salvation.
And Jesus' work
is the climax of that story.
And in the whole story
of Jesus' work
in the Gospels,
his death and resurrection
are the climax
of that story.
So that means
that everything in the Bible
is in orbit
around this point
right here.
Everything in the Bible
that happened before this point
is looking forward to it.
And everything after this
is looking back.
So when Jesus says,
I have accomplished
what I set out to do,
that is an incredibly
important statement
because he's not saying
I finished my work today.
And he's not even saying
I finished my life's work.
He's making a much bigger statement
than that.
He's saying he has finished
the work that God
has been doing
since the beginning of time.
When God created the world,
it was good.
There was peace.
And people lived
in a good relationship
with God
and with each other.
But when they disobeyed God,
they sinned
and rebelled against him
and everything was broken.
Not only for them,
but for all of us.
Our relationship
with God is broken.
We were made
to be with him
and to have clear consciences,
to enjoy his friendship
and kindness,
to be gently led by him.
But now we hide from him.
We fear him.
We sense this guilt
and we try to compensate
for it
by ignoring God
or by distracting ourselves
with everything
that this life has to offer.
But God said,
I can fix that.
I'll fix our relationship.
And our relationship
with each other is broken.
We have hearts
that are not right.
We're selfish
and greedy
and we disrespect each other
and we look out for ourselves.
We hate each other.
We are racist.
We are unjust.
We divorce our husbands
and wives.
We mistreat our children.
We bully each other.
We fight
and we steal
and we go to war
and we make a wreckage
of human lives.
We are corrupt
and we are addicted
to all kinds of things
that harm us.
And we're afraid
and we're weak
and our lives,
our inner lives
are just disordered.
But God said,
I can fix that.
I can fix that too.
I'll fix it.
I'll give you a new heart.
I'll make you a new person
and I'll give you
a new community
of brothers and sisters.
And creation is broken.
Everything is broken
in the world.
There are terrible diseases
and terrible pain.
There are natural disasters
and hurricanes
and earthquakes
and then we die.
God didn't make us
to die originally
but we do now.
We grow old
and parts of our bodies
quit working
and we die
and we leave behind
our friends and family.
And then pretty soon
they die
and they leave behind
their friends and family
and then no one
remembers us at all.
But God said,
I can fix that too.
I can fix it all.
I can cure everything
that is wrong
and make all things new
and so he sent
his son Jesus.
And Jesus is not
a savior
who storms in
and forces his will
on everyone.
He is a savior
who fixes
what is wrong
by taking it
upon himself.
Paul says
in 2 Corinthians 5,
God made Jesus
who had no sin
to be sin for us
so that in him
we might become
the righteousness
of God.
It was a task
that only he could do.
It was the payment
for the remaking
of the world
and the human heart.
And Jesus hung
on that cross
and he said,
I did it.
I did that.
And that brings us
to the invitation.
An invitation
to it is finished.
We have a yard
at my house
that takes a long time
to cut.
It takes a long time
to cut the grass.
There have been
a few times
when my wife
is at home
during the day
and I've been at work
and she goes out there
and she takes
an hour and a half
or whatever it takes
to cut that grass
and I come home
from work,
I drive home
and I'm stressed
and I've had
a busy day,
a full day
and I'm thinking,
oh,
I've got to cut
the grass tonight
and it's going
to take me
an hour and a half
and I'm already tired
and there's so many
other things
I could be doing.
Then as I round
the corner
and I look at the lawn,
it's done.
And relief
just washes over me.
I can do
other things now.
I got an hour
and a half
of time bonus.
I can rest,
I can do other work
that I have to do.
But imagine
if I go inside
and I change
into my work clothes
and then I go out
into the garage
and I start up
the lawn mower
and I start going
around the yard
and my wife
comes out to me
and she says,
what are you doing?
That's a pretty
good question
because I'm not
actually accomplishing
anything.
I can't do that work.
There's nothing
to cut
because she has
already done it
and not only that
but not only can't
I do it
but I'm missing
out on the benefit
of her having
done it for me.
I could be doing
something else.
I could be resting
but instead I'm
wearing myself out
doing a job
that has already
been finished.
No one would do that.
It's a ridiculous
story.
But so often
we are tempted
to do exactly
the same thing
when it comes
to our salvation.
The salvation
that Christ
has already
finished.
because Christ
has finished
the work
because he has
completed the job
I think there's
three things
that we need to do.
Number one
we must believe
that his work
was effective.
The Bible says
that if we want
to be forgiven
and cleansed
and brought back
into relationship
with God
then we must believe
that Jesus Christ
Jesus Christ's
death on the cross
worked.
In the book
of Acts
when people ask
what must I do
to be saved
the answer is
believe
in the Lord
Jesus Christ
and you will
be saved.
And it says
in Romans 10
if you confess
with your mouth
that Jesus
is Lord
and believe
in your heart
that God
raised him
from the dead
you will be saved.
And that doesn't
seem like enough
does it?
It's too big
of a job.
It's too big
of a task
for that to be
it.
That's all I have
to do
to participate
in this work
that Christ
has done for me
is simply believe
and the answer
is yes.
Yes that's all
that has to be done
because he has
already done it.
There's no more
work left to finish.
He has finished
everything.
The second
we not only need
to believe
but the second
we need to accept
that the job
is already done.
When there's
a big job
to do
it is so tempting
to try and jump
in there
and help
in some way.
Go out to the garage
and fire up a lawnmower
maybe I can
help.
When it comes
to our sins
and brokenness
we come up
with all kinds
of ways
to kind of
pay that off.
Fix our problems
with God.
We know that
they're deep
and significant.
We try to do
the right things.
We try to live
pretty good lives.
We keep up
our faithful
religious rituals
to keep God
happy.
The right
political views.
But that is
exhausting.
It's so tiring
and exhausting.
It wears us out
and there's so much
pressure on us.
And not only that
but it does not
work.
It doesn't work.
Do we honestly
think
that living
a pretty good
life and giving
money to the
red cross
and voting
the right way
and keeping
up some
religious rituals
do we honestly
think that that
is going to cure
the darkness
that we sense
in our own
hearts?
And that that's
going to fix
the brokenness
that we see
all around us?
It says in
Ephesians 2
that we are
dead in our
sins.
We are lost.
We are cut
off from God.
You can't bring
someone back to
life by being
pretty good.
It doesn't work
that way.
There's nothing
that we can do
to get rid of
our sin and to
make things right
with God.
But fortunately
Christ hangs on
that cross and
he says I've
already finished
that job.
I've already
paid for those
sins and
completed that
work of salvation
and there's
really nothing
left for you
to do.
So just take
it easy.
And so third
we need to
rest.
We need to
rest.
Because now
that Christ
has said
it is
finished
we can have
peace.
We can have
a clear
conscience.
Some of the
things we
know this
some of the
things that we
do are so
wrong.
we do
we do some
pretty bad
things.
We hurt
people.
We say
awful things.
We think
awful things.
We do
things that
are deviant.
And it's so
easy to torment
ourselves over
that and to
think about how
shocking it is
that we would
do that thing,
that we would
look at that
thing, that we
would think
that thing.
we're
embarrassed.
We feel the
shame burning
on our faces
and we beat
ourselves up
with self-loathing
and guilt.
But if we
have accepted
that Christ
has finished
the work,
if we have
let him finish
the task
for us,
then it's
taken care
of.
If we have
confessed our
sins and
turned away
from our sins
then they are
finished.
Christ has
finished them.
And so we
go to Christ
and we say,
my sin is so
terrible, how
can you ever
stand to look
at me?
You may be
surprised at
what I've
done.
And it's as
though Christ
says to us,
what are you
talking about?
What sin are
you talking
about?
I took care
of that.
My job was
to take care
of your sin
and I finished
that job.
It's done
now.
I once
heard a
pastor tell
a simple
story that
I love
so much.
A man
goes to
his pastor
and he
says,
Pastor,
I've
sinned and
I feel
terrible
about it
and nothing
will ease
my conscience.
I have
confessed a
thousand times
and I still
don't feel
better.
And the
pastor says
to him,
well,
there's your
problem right
there.
You should
have confessed
it one
time and
praised him
a thousand
times.
when Christ
had received
the sour
wine,
he said,
it is
finished.
And then
he bowed
his head
and gave
up his
spirit.
We must
believe that
and be
saved from
our sins.
We must
accept it
instead of
wearing ourselves
out,
trying to do
his job
over and
over again
ourselves.
and we
must rest
because our
sins are
gone and
we are
now free.
Thanks be to
God for his
inexpressible
gift.
Amen.
Let's pray
together.
Father,
what a joy
it is to
read this
passage in
this holy
week and
remind ourselves
of what you
accomplished on
the cross.
This is not
the way that
we're geared.
We're geared
to do these
things ourselves,
to try and
maintain our
own control
over the
situation.
We are not
geared to let
go of these
things and let
you handle it.
But I pray
that you would
help us to
believe in
what you
have done,
to believe in
you,
to accept
that that
work has
been completed
and then to
have the joy
of our
salvation,
of walking
with you,
knowing that
we are in
Christ and
that you have
brought us near
to yourself
through him.
We praise you
for your work
on the cross.
In Jesus' name,
Amen.