For April 6

 

Sermon: Words From the Cross: It Is Finished!

Intro: Today we come to the Cross on this fifth Sunday of Lent to hear the final dying words of Jesus from the Cross. From there, we’ve heard him forgive and pardon great sinners. We’ve heard Him feeling the agony of separation from the Father, as if forsaken, while He bore the cup of wrath for sins that His Holy Father could not look upon. We heard Him provide for the care for His mother out of His deep love for her, who had sacrificed much for Him in God’s chosen role for her . And today, we will see Him declare He has finished His ministry in God’s Plan of Salvation, as He surrenders His life on that Cross before His lifeless body is removed from the Cross and hastily placed in a tomb. During that time in the tomb, while even His closest followers who didn’t yet understand what He had said would then happen, experienced the despair of feeling He was dead. If they had understood Scripture, believed in Him, trusted in what He had continued to teach and promise them, they would have only had to wait to see His Plan unfold further on that Easter morning.

 

I.  It is finished.

A. But today, we’ll look at His dying from the two different Gospels of Luke and John. Luke wrote His Gospel many years after the Church had become established, and was written based on interviews with eyewitnesses to provide the details Luke used in his account. John had been an eyewitness for most of the Crucifixion, but his Gospel was also written years after the Crucifixion. In the interim, faded memories may have altered some details, but still provide the significance of the event.

B, On May 10, 1869. the  great transcontinental railway uniting the country by rail from the Atlantic to the Pacific was completed. The ceremonial driving of the final spikes at Promontory Summit, Utah was a planned, special day. Special laurel wood ties and two silver spikes, one for each state, were used. The governor of each state drove the two silver spikes into the wood tie, thus uniting the States and completing a way of transportation from coast to coast. As the governors drove in the spikes, the crowd applauded and a telegraph wire flashed the news to the rest of the country that the task was finally finished.

C. Two thousand years earlier there was a planned, special day when spikes were driven, not into a laurel tie, but through the hands and feet of the Son of God into a cross. John’s Gospel account describes Jesus as knowing He had done everything He had to do coming to the Cross and on that Cross that fulfilled Scripture. It completed the plan to open the way for humankind to enter into heaven.

D. But this planned, special day was not a celebration that people gathered to honor an event, but rather a day many watched as Jesus suffered on the Cross. He probably had developed a fever from his loss of blood, while the deep wounds from the whip’s lashes, and the crown of thorns pushed into His scalp, were becoming infected, while spikes were driven through His hands and feet, greatly adding to his suffering. It was normal for the death squad of soldiers to have a jar of sour wine vinegar nearby to drink. Jesus’ consequent dehydration would have caused Him in very human agony to cry out, “I thirst.” A sponge was lifted up for Him to sip. When He had received the drink, John writes, Jesus said “It is finished.” But there was no applause or telegraph flashing the news as Jesus proclaimed His news, It is finished”. He simply bowed His head, and gave up his spirit. He didn’t die as a result of crucifixion, His life had not been forcibly taken from Him against His will. He willingly gave up His spirit. That’s an important distinction, making it His will to complete God’s plan, not a human decision.

E. Those three words, “It is finished”, come from the Greek word tetelestai. Not a familiar word to us, but used by various people in everyday life back then. A servant would use it when reporting to his or her master that the work assigned to them had been completed. When a priest examined an animal sacrifice and found it faultless, he would use that word. But especially meaningful in this application, a merchant would use the word to mean that a debt had been paid in full. When Jesus said tetelestai, He was saying that His life had ended, having paid our sin debt in full, and fulfilling Scripture. .

F, Christian author Max Lucado further writes, “The history-long plan of redeeming man was finished. The message of God to man was finished. The works done by Jesus as a man on earth were finished. The task of selecting and training ambassadors was finished. The job was finished. The song had been sung. The blood had been poured. The sacrifice had been made. The sting of death had been removed. It was over.”

 

II.  Into Your Hands, I Commit My Spirit

A. Luke provides a few additional details about Jesus giving up His life, after he had declared, Tetelestai, It is finished!. The whole land had been covered in darkness from noon until three as the sun had stopped shining. Then the Veil that had separated man from the Holy of Holies in the Temple, a massive curtain approximately 60 feet long, 30 feet high, and about 4 inches thick, had been suddenly torn in two, from the top to the bottom. Teams of horses at each end of the curtain wouldn’t have been able to tear that curtain. But it had been torn from the top to the bottom. Only God could have performed such a feat. Jesus had become the means of access to God that had been finally completed. The way was now open from earth to heaven! Jesus’ purpose on earth had been finished.

B. Luke writes that Jesus then cried out in a loud voice, “Father, into Your Hands I commit my spirit.”  These are the same words found in David’s Psalm 31:5, except Jesus made it even more endearing by beginning it with “Father”. Jesus had gone back to saying, Father. rather than in His earlier lament, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” That verse was the prayer Jewish mothers taught their children to say as the last thing at night, just as many of us may have been taught to pray, ‘Now I lay me down to sleep, I pray the Lord my soul to keep.’ Even on the cross, Jesus died like a child falling asleep in His Father’s arms. Having declared “it is finished“, the sin debt had been paid and reconciliation with the Father restored, as Jesus then entrusts His spirit into His Father’s hands as He surrenders His life.

C. There’s a strong message for us in these words. Jesus, knowing the Father so completely, had no problem putting Himself in His Father’s Hands because He knew there were no better hands than His Father’s and He knew that He could totally trust His Father. The Father’s hands are trustworthy. We need to know that we can entrust every part of our lives, as well as our spirit, into God’s hands because there is no One more trustworthy. When you truly entrust your spirit to God you are entrusting all of yourself to Him.

D. Many of you may remember the Allstate commercials that encouraged people to put their trust in them, the ‘good hands’ people. ‘The good hands people’ became their branding. But not even close to the ‘good hands’ of our God. There are people who are afraid to put their life in the hands of God, much less their spirit. Some fear what God might have them do or what He might have them give up. Others won’t put their life in the hands of God because they’re not ready to take their hands off the steering wheel. They want to be in charge of the direction of their life.

E, In Jeremiah 29:11 the prophet tells the despairing exiles they could trust Him, “For I know the plans I have for you, says the Lord. Plans to prosper you and not to harm you. Plans to give you a hope and a future.” That scripture isn’t just for Israel, it’s for each one of us. He has a plan for our lives that will benefit us. Not necessarily the same plan for each of us, but a plan that will bring hope and purpose to our lives. Yet some are so set in charting their own course, they refuse to put their lives in God’s hands and see His plan for their future He has for them.

F. Some people may feel that putting their lives in God’s hands means that only good things will happen to them. This world is full of tragedy and Christians aren‘t exempt. But we have a God who gives us the strength we need for His Plan. A God who promises us in Romans 8:28 that He works for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. That means even when we have tragedy that strikes our life, God can take that tragedy and bring about good for us. It may be that through the tragedy that God shapes us to understand the needs of others. We don’t know how He might use that tragedy for good, but we have His promise that He will work it to our good.

G. Jesus’ dying words had put Himself in His Father’s Hands, just like He had done throughout His earthly ministry. Just as he had done in the Garden of Gethsemane the night before, facing intense human fear of what He knew was about to take place. So intense was His fear that He sweat drops of blood. He even appealed to His Father to change His mind. “Let this cup pass from me.”  He was at a critical point of His life facing the unimaginable torture waiting for Him. He had not sinned, yet He would bear the wrath of God’s anger against the sin of the world. He would suffer as no man had ever suffered before. But He loved His Father as no man ever could. And His Father loved Him, yet sending Him as the only One who could complete His Plan of Salvation. There was no Plan B. And Jesus willingly chose to do exactly as His Father had sent Him to do. Fo God so loved the world that He gave His only Son, that whoever would believe in Him should not perish but have everlasting life. Reconciling man to God, creator of heaven and earth.

H. Jesus willingly bore the sins of the world upon Himself on that awful Cross. He had been crucified, as prophecy said he would. And now dead, His body was being removed from the Cross to be buried in the dark tomb, and raised on the third day, resurrected, ascending into heaven and seated at the right of God the Father, where He will come to again to judge the living and the dead, as we stated as our beliefs with the Apostle’s Creed.

 

Conclusion: Although Jesus had finished His work on the Cross that had fulfilled Scripture, and had surrendered His life, putting His spirit in His Father’s Hands, there was still a major piece of the salvation plan that Jesus was completely trusting to His Father. He would lie dead in the sealed tomb until the third day. Without Resurrection, His death would be  just like any other human. There would be no final victory. But Jesus had entrusted His death, like His life, with His Father. The world doubted, even came to prepare His body for the grave. But there they realized the certainty of God’s plan. Jesus was alive. He is alive! Proof that we can trust God with our lives as Jesus did with His. The last part of His Plan now remains for us – how will we respond?  Will we surrender our lives to Him, trusting Him to do all He promises. It’s our choice.  Amen

 

The Invitation: Jesus’ task on earth has been finished.  He had put Himself in the Hands of His Father as He gave up His spirit.  Surrendered Himself completely to the Father, trusting Him as He completes His Plan of Salvation for us. Now it’s our turn to surrender ourselves, commit our lives into His Hands.  His Will be done.  Jesus can take our sins away, freeing us from the power of sin over our lives, freeing us from the paralyzing guilt of our sins, freeing us to lives of victory.  But we cannot merely assume He will forgive our sins.  We must confess that He is Lord, confess our belief that He will forgive our sins, and confess those sins.  Easter is the day His Plan for our salvation was finished.  His salvation is available to us anytime, anywhere, for everyone. He invites us to His Table of Communion, to receive the gift of His blood that was shed for the forgiveness of our sins. Come now, by His grace to share the gift He paid for, then surrendered His life, having finished His work.