Scripture: John 19:25b-30 (NRSV)
Meanwhile, standing near the cross of Jesus were his mother, and his mother’s sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing beside her, he said to his mother, “Woman, here is your son.” Then he said to the disciple, “Here is your mother.” And from that hour the disciple took her into his own home. After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
Sermon: Finished
Let us pray:
Patient teacher, we hear this story year after year. But even though it may be familiar to us, we ask that the words of my mouth and the meditations of our hearts startle us into transformation and new life. Amen.
Jesus was dying. The women watched as he, already brutalized, was dragged through the city. They watched as the nails went into his hands, as the cross was lifted up. Their eyesight may have been blurred as they wept, their hearing may have been obscured by their own wailing, but they knew what was happening to their beloved teacher, healer, and savior. They knew his life was finished, and, with it, theirs as well.
We have not been to public executions. They are considered barbaric, though of course this week I learned that the state of Arkansas prepares to put seven people to death in ten days because the drugs they use in executions are set to expire. And of course, you can see plenty of footage on Youtube documenting police shootings in our own country. And of course, we hear almost daily it seems of bombs being dropped, on our behalf we are told, in other parts of the world. But while with these reminders we may catch a glimpse the shame of public executions, the senseless violence of it, most of us do not really understand it. But we do understand pain. And the women at the foot of the cross in the Gospel of John are like we have been at one point or another or maybe like we are now, consumed by our own pain. Wondering how our lives could go on.
And while the women stood there, hearts breaking, helpless, angry even, Jesus said, “It is finished.” And then he died. So what is finished?1 His life? We know that not to be the case. His work? Well, I don't know. Have you ever met someone needing healing, redemption, salvation? So then “it” couldn't refer to sin either, since we know there is still some sin left in the world, right? Maybe “it” meant pain, his and others? The women at the foot of the cross could tell you otherwise. We could tell you otherwise.
Like so much of the Bible, the statement “It is finished” is open ended, resisting easy answers. So you may read it differently than I do. Tomorrow I may read it differently than I do today. But today, I think that Jesus didn't mean all pain was over when he declared, “It is finished.” He didn't mean sin was gone. We read this statement as an ending, but instead it is a beginning.2Even as he was dying, Jesus was promising us a new way to live.
You see, in the Gospel of John, “while the world hurls forth the worst it has to offer, Jesus remains unfazed and triumphant."3 Can you imagine what the women at the foot of the cross felt when they heard Jesus' words? They were despairing and fearful, but he was calm and confident. He wasn't belittling their pain, though; in fact, just a few verses earlier in our scripture, he encouraged them to continue to lean on one another when he told the beloved disciple and his mother that they were family now, saying, “Woman here is your son.” But death did not shake him the way it was shaking them. Because he trusted in God's transforming power. And he declared, even though no one could see it yet, that the old life was gone and new life was beginning already. It is finished.
Frankly, I always preferred the Jesus of the Gospel of Mark, who cries out from the cross, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Mark 15:34). I want a God who knows my pain. But in the Gospel of John, the women are the ones who know my pain. They are huddled together, broken. But Jesus reaches out to them, not allowing the ugliness of the world defeat him and inviting us not to let it defeat us either. He does not let sorrow have the last word, or pain. In the Gospel of John, new life does not begin in the empty tomb, but even before, even from the cross. Because Jesus shows us possibility where we might never see it. Before the resurrection, he shows us how to remain triumphant even in the midst of pain.
I don't know about you, but this is a lesson I need in my life. Presbury knows that my family and I have struggled a lot in the past year. This is not the first, but the second Easter in a row that I would have been pregnant if I had not miscarried. And I have still not yet experienced the promise of new life. I cannot see it. I don't have certainty that next year or the year after we will finally have a baby. The bitterness gets so overwhelming at times. But Jesus in the Gospel of John on Good Friday tells us we don't need certainty. And he tells us that we don't have to let pain overwhelm us. He tells us it is finished. He doesn't tell us how or when; when he says, “It is finished,” he invites us even in the midst of our pain now, today, to live differently.
1The idea that follows riffs on the commentary by Randall C. Bailey, “Good Friday,” Preaching God's Transforming Justice: A Lectionary Commentary, Year A, eds. Dawn Ottoni-Wilhelm, Ronald J. Allen, and Dale P. Andrews (Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2013), 192.
2Trygve
David Johnson, “Homeletical Perspective on John 18:1-19:42,”
Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised
Common Lectionary,
Year A, Vol. 2, eds. David L. Bartlett and Barbara Brown Taylor
(Lousiville, Kentucky: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 301 and
303.
