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INJ
The Passion According to St John
'It is Finished'
Tenebre Service
Good Friday | April 6, 2007
Dear Saints,
“It is finished.” What's finished?
In the beginning God created all things good, full of life, but then, breaking through God's goodness comes the devil, with sin and death on his tail. Then Adam and Eve and the fall and death. Then God said, “It has begun.” The great and epic war between life and death, between sin and righteousness, between Jesus and the devil. “It has begun. Your seed shall crush His heal. Her seed shall crush your head. It has begun.”
And through the ages it rages on, this great battle between light and dark. Cain and Able, Noah, Abraham, Israel, Joseph, and Moses and Aaron and the children of Israel, called out of Egypt and Pharaoh's house with Lamb blood on their hands and unleavened bread hanging out of their mouths. In the wilderness and with Jacob, into the promised land, and with the Judges fighting and prophets preaching and priests sacrificing. With David, and Solomon and the Kings. Always fighting against the devil, always waiting and hoping for the great Conqueror, the Promised One to come.
Then there's Mary, and the Baby, the angels and the shepherds, Jesus has come. But there's more fighting still, the fieriest yet. John the Baptist and the wilderness and and the demons and the disciples and the crowds, “Give us some bread.” “Show us a miracle.” “Crucify Him.” The Pharisees, then Judas, and Annas and Caiaphas, Pilate and Herod and the soldiers. Then the whip, the cross, the nails, the darkness, the agony, the sin, the wrath, the hell.
Three and a half years of preaching. Two years of rejection. Twenty hours of torture. Six hours of hanging, gasping, suffering. Three hours of darkness, of being beaten by heaven and hell and everyone in between. And now, now: “It is finished.”
The battle waged by God against the devil in the garden, the battle for you, for me, for poor miserable sinners, the battle for your life and salvation, that is what is finished. It's over. Jesus has won.
But look at how Jesus finishes it: by being ripped apart and destroyed and pummeled and torn to bits. Look at Him hanging limp from the accursed tree, His spirit breathed out, the last bit of blood slipping out of His infected wounds and running down the rough side of the cross and into the black pool on the ground. Is this what a Victor looks like, a Winner? Is this the vision of a Champion, of a Conqueror, of a Hero? Yes. In the Lord's way of winning, yes.
“It is finished.” He conquers in His being conquered. He destroys and crushes the devil in His own being destroyed and crushed. He defeats death by dying. He stood between you and death, between you and the devil, between you and hell, between you and the wrath of God that you deserved, between you and darkness and weeping and gnashing of teeth and the worm that does not die and the fire that is not quenched. That is both His great sorrow and His great joy, for now, now that it is finished, you have forgiveness and Jesus has you.
And in this way there is nothing to be ashamed of in the suffering and death of our Lord Jesus on the cross. His wounds are His jewels, His beautiful adornment. They are what make this Friday “good”. Amen.
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Pastor Bryan Wolfmueller
Hope Lutheran Church | Aurora, CO