The Sixth Word

“It is finished.”

John 19:30

This week our reflection on the Sixth Word is written by Joseph Chen.

Out of all of Jesus’s utterances on the cross, the sixth one—”It is finished”—is probably the most relatable. How many of us remember voicing a similar sentiment, maybe after a difficult project, a messy breakup, or just a long day of work? We reach the end, and usually with a long, deep sigh, we say under our breaths: It’s done. It’s finally over. It is finished.

Imagine the relief Jesus might have felt at that moment. He was finally going to die. A lifetime of being tempted, mistreated, misunderstood, and persecuted. The conclusion to the betrayal, humiliation, and torture he endured that very day. All suffered at the hands of the ones he loved and came to save. Who could blame Jesus for being glad when the pain had finally come to an end?

I confess, it’s uncomfortable for me to think about. God became flesh knowing full well he would end up on that cross, but he made his dwelling among us anyway. Surely, it was because Jesus knew he had a job to do. “It is finished” is a proclamation, announcing once and for all that the work of salvation has been accomplished. It is victory over death. The defeat of sin. The promise that all sad things are coming untrue. How could he have possibly felt relief when the pains of the present pale in comparison to the cosmic significance of the cross?

I need to remember, in Lent especially, that Jesus did not want to die. In Gethsemane, Jesus is “overwhelmed with sorrow” and asks the Father to take the cup away, his face pressed against the dirt as he prayed. In the story of Jesus at Gethsemane Matthew reminds us that Jesus dreaded the day of his crucifixion. He dreaded it because dread is the human response to what Jesus was about to go through. After all, Incarnation means that everything that humans have gone and will go through, he has been there. That includes the entire emotional spectrum: from joy, excitement, and relief to loneliness, depression, and anxiety. Jesus has been there before us, and therefore knows firsthand what we are going through.

So yes, Jesus completed something incredible on the cross. But it was also the completion of something awful, the worst pain that humanity could muster inflicted on one who could experience that bodily, spiritual, and emotional pain to its fullest extent. In the midst of our own pain, may we be comforted by the crucified God who has been there before us, and is with us still. In the midst of our journey through Lent, may we be discomforted by the fact that we were the ones that put him through that pain, a tension that we must continue to bear until He comes again.

I mentioned, at the beginning, examples of situations where, after some long arduous task, we too might be inclined to say “It is finished.” Though the details may differ, the constant in all of these situations is that every end leads to a new beginning. No matter how long, how painful, or how draining the experience was, life goes on. Perhaps sooner than we’d like, we wake up the next morning and head back to work again. But something is different about Jesus’s statement. Scripture speaks of a different pattern, one that goes beyond merely continuing what came before. The last time God said “It is finished” was all the way back in Genesis 2, on the sixth day of the creation story. The work of creation was over, but it was not the end, but rather the beginning of our story. Implicit in Jesus’s statement about one end is the anticipation of a new beginning. A new creation, a stone rolled away, an empty tomb…

But we are not quite there yet. It’s only the fifth week of Lent, and there is still a ways to go before we are ready to walk with Jesus to the cross, where we will once again remember what has been lost so that we may truly know what has been gained.