John 19: 30-37

Theme: The Cross

FREEDOM!

"It is finished," He whispered more to Himself than to anyone else. He studied each graceful curve, each intricate detail He had carved into the handmade cradle. It was a masterpiece. It was straight and square and strong and perfect. It rocked with a smooth, quiet gate. Anyone would love to have it for their child. A cradle made by the hands of a skilled Jewish carpenter.

It was a common word in the Greek language, tetelestai. Any child who has studied grammar would have known its form, the prefect passive tense, "it is finished, it is complete." I am sure that He knew the language even though his native tongue was Aramaic. In fact, Nazareth was only 5 miles from Sepphoris, one of the largest and fastest growing Roman cities in northern Palestine. Anyone doing business in that area would have to know how to speak Greek. " yes sir, your cradle is finished, it is beautiful, I hope your child sleeps well in it."

I wonder if when He used those words, did chills run down His spine? Did He think about the future and what grand significance they would hold for those for whom He would die? They would not be uttered quietly in a carpenter’s shop. Rather, they would be cried out from high upon a rough-hewn cross under the dark, boiling sky right outside of Jerusalem’s gates. And when He cried out tetelestai, the world would be changed forever, the promise had been kept. It was finished.

When Jesus cried out tetelestai, He did not mean that it was over, but that it was complete, His work was perfect, nothing else needed to be done. Whatever Jesus had come to do, was done. Jesus' words were not a cry of anguish and failure but a shout of victory. When the world thought that He was finished and lost, Jesus was the victor. And to prove it, Jesus willingly gave up the spirit. No one took His life from him, He bowed his head and gave it up.

Not one person understood the events that day. The rest of the disciples were hidden, afraid that the soldiers would come for them. They did not understand. Only John stayed with the four women and saw Him die, but he did not understand. It was only in hindsight that John understood. Why was it so hard to understand? Because the cross was a scandal. They were looking for the Messiah, God's anointed. No one who was from God would die on a cross, they thought.

If we are to understand how uncomprehending these words of Jesus were to His disciples, much less to those who did not believe in Him, then we must understand how shocking and surprising was the cross. We must understand the scandal. Paul said that the cross was foolishness to both Jews and gentiles. They did not realize, the cross was God's crowning act.

Did you know that among the first known pieces of art related to the Christian movement was an engraving of a man hanging on a cross with the head of a donkey? It was found on the wall of a school and it was engraved with the words "Alexander worships his God." They were, in essence, saying that anyone who believes in the cross is a fool.

The cross was an instrument of death, which is scandalous enough. It was used by the Romans as a means of executing enemies of the state. Whoever was crucified on a cross was a criminal in the minds of the people. But only the worst of the criminals died on a cross. It was usually a foreigner or a slave but not a Roman citizen. To those people who saw Him die, this Jesus must have been the worst kind of criminal.

But for the Jew the scandal was even greater than just the implication of a criminal death. To them the cross was cursed. The Jews did not practice crucifixion; rather, they stoned people to death. But when that person was a particularly hated criminal or enemy, they would erect a pole and hang the person's body on it for display. It was to further shame the memory of that person and to display their cursedness before the people as a warning. How could they accept a man who died on a cursed cross as their Messiah?

Salvation was by keeping the law, so thought many Jews. The cross was clearly an attack upon the current thinking of their day and is still an attack upon a particular kind of thinking today. As long men and women believe that they can reach God on the basis of their morality, then the cross is to them foolishness. Jesus demolished the Jewish moral law and He demolishes American common sense. It is sensible to think that we are good people. There is just something normal about the kind of thought that says, "I am a good person and God ought to like me for it." We are blinded by our own condition when we think we can do it on our own. We were never made to live without God and now that we are separated from God by sin, we live an illusion. The cross bursts our illusions of goodness.

I don't know why God chose the cross. He could have just let man rot in his sin. But God chose to do something about our sin and He chose the scandalous cross.

One reason that God chose the cross may be precisely because it destroys so many of our preciously held myths. God took the most scandalous thing on earth and made it a thing of mercy and grace. It essence He is saying "all of your good works and all of your wisdom are useless. Why I will take the dreaded, scandalous, foolish cross in all of it's pain and agony and I will make it My instrument of salvation." And if you want salvation, you must come by way of that cross. If you are unwilling to accept the cross then there is nothing left but hell.

Jesus could cry out that it is finished because the cross was His chosen instrument of salvation. It was for our salvation that Jesus came in the first place. Jesus chose willfully to go to that cross and die. We are told in the Book of Colossians that even before the foundations of the world Jesus had chosen the way of the cross. By His choice, Jesus left the splendor of heaven and became a man. He was born in a manger as a frail human child. He went through childhood. He was a fourteen-year-old boy once. He knows how we feel. He has hurt like us, has been hungry and lonely and suffered injustice. Why? So that He could tell us that God loved us. God became our size to tell us that He loved us. For that reason Jesus died on the cross.

Another reason that It was finished was because it was on the cross Jesus removed our sin. It is a mystery. We cannot explain how The Son Of God's death on the cross removed our sin. But the Bible uses many words to explain it. The Bible says that Jesus upon the cross was our sacrifice, our substitute, our mercy seat, our Passover, our ransom, our Lamb, our propitiation, our expiation, our reconciler, our justifier, and on and on. There are over 20 different ideas found in the NT whose purpose is to express to believers that Jesus' death on the cross freed us from our sin. Forever our sins have been separated from us as far as the east is from the west and we will see them no more. When we stand before God's Judgement seat, he will not see us, he will see the blood of Christ.

Finally, the reason that it was finished on the cross was because it is to the cross that we must come to be saved. There is no other salvation and there is no other place to go. The implications are clear; you must come and die with Jesus. His death becomes our death. The old man with his sin and shame is nailed to the cross when we come to Jesus by faith. It is only after we have been to the cross can we experience His resurrection. Only then can we live our new life as Christians. We all must go to the cross to be set free of sin.

"It is finished" is a cry of freedom. He or she who comes to the cross can truly be set free. Freedom in Christ means that we are no longer slaves to the ways of the world. We can now live for God! Our minds and hearts do not have to be trapped by the godless attitudes that once controlled us. We are free from the consumption of hate and revenge. We are free to give to God with a cheerful heart our money as we seek to worship and serve Him. We are set free to bear witness to others of God’s love for us. We are free from a mindless self centeredness and are able to give our attention and good works to others. The trappings of this world do not control us because our sights are not set on the wealth of this world, but on the glory of the world to come. Jesus has set us free from sin and death and gives us a glorious future with Him.

Freedom! That is what the cross has done for us. Are you free? Have you been to the cross of Christ and been set free from your sins?