A few months ago I attended the filming of Adam Hamilton’s study of John. I sat in the audience, smiling and holding a coffee mug, while a camera crew filmed a series of six devotional presentations. After each devotional, Adam opened the floor for questions from the audience members.
Toward the end of the day I raised my hand to ask, “Why would Jesus say ‘It is finished’ if he hadn’t yet resurrected?”
Adam responded well, but I still wanted more of an answer. So I researched and read quite a bit, and came to the realization that in order to understand the “It is finished” verse, we need to know a bit more about the full scope of the Gospel of John.
Of the four gospel accounts, John portrays Jesus as the most confident and determined. Jesus performs a lot of miracles, talks of himself in “I am” terms (which cues back to God’s description of Himself in Exodus 3:14), and predicts his death over and over again. One of the greatest examples of John heightening Jesus’ sense of mission is how he depicts Jesus praying before his arrest. I wrote about Luke’s account of Jesus praying on the Mount of Olives earlier this week and entitled it, “When Jesus Also Doubted.”
In contrast to Jesus sweating blood and praying for another way out in Luke, John claims that Jesus began his prayer, “Father, the time has come. Glorify your Son, so that the Son can glorify you. You gave him authority over everyone so that he could give eternal life to everyone you gave him. This is eternal life: to know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you sent. I have glorified you on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do. Now, Father, glorify me in your presence with the glory I shared with you before the world was created.” (John 17:1-5).
It’s almost as if Jesus had a to-do list while he was on the earth. In his prayer before his arrest, Jesus acknowledged to God that he had checked off most of the boxes, and now he needed to subject himself to arrest and death in order to complete the list.
So Jesus proceeds through his persecution and crucifixion, and in the moment just before he died, he proclaimed, “It is finished.” In his death, he had completed all of the tasks that God had commissioned him to do while he was on the earth.
The resurrection, the moment of in-breaking hope, happened three days later. But that wasn’t on Jesus’ to-do list; it was on God’s. In the moments before Jesus dies in Luke, Jesus states, “Father, into your hands I entrust my life” (Luke 23:46). Jesus placed his hope, trust, and life in God, knowing that God would resurrect him.
Jesus completed so much while he was on the earth, and in his final breaths he finished the last task on the list. And that’s what we mourn and what we celebrate today. That Jesus had to endure such violence, persecution, and death, while knowing that God always held him, and would never leave him nor forsake him. Jesus knew that in dying, his trials on earth were over, and that God would physically resurrect him three days later. And upon his resurrection he would no longer suffer — he would instead spread hope, joy, and celebration.
Pastor Melissa 