The mother of Jesus was standing on a wretched, ugly hill called Golgotha. Her firstborn son, the special son, the gift of God conceived of Holy Spirit, was being murdered right before her eyes. The religious rulers of the Jews had cried for his death and the pagan ruler of the gentiles had ordered his crucifixion. Her firstborn son, her special son, had been beaten almost beyond recognition and was nailed to a Roman cross. Blood poured from his wounds even as life poured from his tortured body.
At a time like this, a million memories come surging through a mother’s mind, almost too fast to comprehend but too slow to forget. The visit of the angel who announced her virgin birth. The multitude of angels who announced her son’s birth to the shepherds. The visit by the foreign kings – the Magi they were called – who brought costly gifts and worshipped her young son. The joyful praise of Simeon and Anna in the temple when Jesus was just days old. Simeon’s final, chilling words: “And a sword will pierce through your own soul, also.”
Now her firstborn son was being murdered right before her eyes. As parents, we never expect our children to die before we die. Mary almost surely thought that it wasn’t supposed to end like this. When he was a boy her special son, the gift of God conceived of Holy Spirit, talked about being about his Father’s business. When he was a man he spoke of his Father in heaven, preaching in one city after another as the people followed him from one city to another. Just days before her son of David rode into Jerusalem on a donkey as the people called him King of Israel – just as Solomon the son of David rode on a mule when his Father proclaimed him King of Israel.
The angel had told her that the Lord God would give her son the throne of his Father David. She sang to her cousin Elizabeth, “My soul glorifies the Lord and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior.” But today the song of glory was replaced with cries of anguish that came from the very depths of her soul. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. Today her heart was pierced, her spirit crushed, her grief the unbearable anguish that a mother feels when her beloved child meets death.
Despite and even through his suffering, Jesus speaks to her. “Woman, behold your son.” And to John, the beloved disciple standing next to her, “Behold your mother.” Even as her firstborn son, the special son, the gift of God conceived of God endured the unimaginable agonies of the cross – and as helpless as she was to comfort him – he was comforting her. Her son who had comforted so many and who had healed so many was himself beyond comfort and healing. It wasn’t supposed to end like this. The angel had told her that the Lord God would give her son the throne of his Father David. “He will reign over the house of Jacob forever,” the angel said. “And of his kingdom there will be no end.”
But today his life will soon be finished. Mary will bury her son. Her firstborn son. Her special son. Her son, the gift of God conceived of the Holy Spirit.
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, ‘It is finished,’ and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.”
It is finished. Mary, in her grief, didn’t want it to end this way. John in his despair and the other disciples, hiding in fear, didn’t want to it end this way. The men and women who had followed Jesus from town to town, from valley to wilderness, from Galilee to Judea and to the royal city of Jerusalem, didn’t want it to end this way.
It almost seemed as if the God of all creation did not want it to end this way, either. The sun ceased to shine and the sky turned black in the middle of the day. The earth trembled violently and rocks split in two. Graves were opened. And the great veil of the Temple was ripped from top to bottom, as if some enormous unseen pair of hands had torn apart a piece of rotted cloth.
Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. If these words were nothing more than the last feeble sounds, the last gasps of air, of a tortured, dying man, we would not be here tonight. If these words were nothing more than Jesus’ realization that he could endure no more physical suffering and that he was giving up – in final defeat – then there would be no Good Friday.
My brothers and sisters in Christ, these are not words of defeat. These are words of victory! In the Gospel of Matthew we read that as Jesus died he cried out in a loud voice. “It is finished!” It is complete! It is done once and for all time! Jesus Christ, born of the Virgin Mary, true God and true man, has done exactly what he – what God – set out to do. The plan of salvation that God ordained before the creation of the world has been fulfilled. The salvation that God announced to Adam and Eve immediately after their fall into sin – and the condemnation that God announced to Satan – is complete. Every sin of every man, woman and child – past, present and future – has been forgiven by the Father. For the first time since sin entered the world, God has made us right with Him through His son’s death.
Jesus had completed exactly what the prophets foretold. “He poured out his soul to death, and was numbered with the transgressors.” “Surely he has borne our griefs and carried our sorrows; yet we esteemed him stricken, smitten by God, and afflicted.” O sacred head now wounded!
Jesus had completed exactly what he had foretold. “And he began to teach them that the Son of Man must suffer many things and be rejected by the elders and the chief priests and the scribes and be killed, and after three days rise again. And he said this plainly.” And again, “Truly, truly, I say to you, you will weep and lament.” And again, “We are going up to Jerusalem. And the Son of Man will be delivered over to the chief priests and scribes, and they will condemn him to death and deliver him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified, and he will be raised on the third day.” And then these words: “But they understood none of these things. This saying was hidden from them, and they did not grasp what was said.”
Jesus had completed exactly what must be completed. Mankind was mired in sin and was doomed to suffer the curse of the Law – death. “For the wages of sin is death,” says the Lord. “All have sinned and fall short of the glory of God.” “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us.” “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.”
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” He proclaimed that the battle with Satan and his hordes was over. Satan was conquered and sin was vanquished. The life and death struggle – a struggle between eternal life and endless death – had ended with Satan’s utter rout and bitter defeat.
When Jesus announced, “It is finished,” He fulfilled the promise that God made in Garden of Eden. It was a promise of destruction for Satan and a promise of deliverance for mankind, words that pronounce Satan’s curse and man’s salvation. “I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your offspring and her offspring; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel.” One “born of a woman” had destroyed the devil’s work. Jesus had been mortally wounded in the battle fought on Golgotha, but in His death He had inflicted the deathblow on Satan’s power.
When Jesus cried, “It is finished,” He paid the penalty of sin that we could never satisfy. God the Father had accepted the sacrifice made by God the Son. In place of the ancient sin offerings that the children of Israel offered in the temple, Jesus became the sin offering for you and for me on the cross of Golgotha.
Yes, my brothers and sisters in Christ, it is finished. It is complete. “But he was wounded for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that brought us peace, and with his stripes we are healed. All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned—every one—to his own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.”
In spite of this victory over sin and the devil, we remain somber tonight, and rightly so. Martin Luther said that while Jesus hung on the cross, he suffered the tortures of the damned in hell. As sinners, we recognize that it was us – not Jesus – who deserve those tortures and that terrible death. We are the sinners, yet the only one who was without sin has suffered for us. The Word who became flesh has endured the judgment of the flesh. And but for the grace of God, that judgment would be ours.
But dry your tears, Mary the mother of God. The story of Good Friday is supposed to end like this! Your son has died, and it is finished. On the third day your grief will be ended and you can once again raise your voice to sing that your soul glorifies the Lord and that your spirit rejoices in God your Savior. Your firstborn son, your special son, the gift of God conceived of the Holy Spirit, will rise on the third day and His kingdom will never end!
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