‘It is finished.’ (John 19:30)
Breathe in these words. Draw them down into your lungs and out again. Breathe in deep. Because this is a deep reality. Not skin-deep, but marrow and bone deep. Soul – deep. As deep as deep can go. This is an exhilarating reality, more freeing and powerful than the wind. A gale-forced liberation. Our sins blown away. Our wounds healed. By his wounds. As our little E likes to say when something is over or missing, it has been ‘disappeared.’ Our sins have been disappeared.
This is a truth that cannot be contained. Not in an egg. Not in a tomb.
He is risen. And we can rise with him. If we just believe. In him. That he can do what we cannot.
Don’t we all long for such absolute resolution?
I am not good at finishing things. Rephrase that. I am not good at accepting things are finished. My anxious disposition always imagines there is more to be done.
The truth is we will never get anything perfectly complete. We are not perfect. We can only hope to do our human best and let it go at the end of the day. But this letting go itself is the hard part. We struggle to accept our limitations. We want to be able to control everything, even our destinies on this earth, and beyond. Only we can’t.
But what if there is someone who can get the job perfectly done? Who has, in fact, already completed the task of all tasks, the work that brings us life eternal?
Jesus, the God-man, did that for us on the cross. And it wasn’t easy.
He even pleaded with his Father: ‘ “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” (Matthew 27:46). And yet he persevered. He did it in struggle FOR US.
Isaiah describes our Saviour’s efforts in the past tense: ‘But he was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was on him, and by his wounds we are healed.’ (Isaiah 53:5)
He was pierced for our transgressions.
By his wounds we are healed.
The work is done. And our responsibility this Easter? My personal challenge on this rainy Sydney weekend? To live today in the light of this reality. To take hold of a luminous joy far exceeding the sparkly-foiled round of a chocolate egg. To let go of any misconception we can wrap this up ourselves.
Because its already over. DONE AND DONE AND DONE.
We only need enjoy unwrapping this delicious truth.
