Episodes
Thursday Apr 05, 2018
Moving to finished
Thursday Apr 05, 2018
Thursday Apr 05, 2018
Moving to Finished
A sermon preached by Rev. Dawn Hand at Foundry UMC, April 30, 2018, Good Friday
Text: John 18:1-19:42
It doesn’t take a lot of words to complete a sentence. Three selective words can make all the difference in the world.
A few days ago, one of the bishops in our connection posted this on her Facebook: – 3 words Vacation Begins Today!!! – I suppose the three exclamation points were to give thanks to the triune God.
How many of you remember as a kid hearing or now if you are a parent remember saying these three words – Go to Bed. And then a little voice yells out – ‘I’m thirsty,’ – ‘Go to Bed.’ The little voice – ‘but daddy, I need a snack’ – I said – ‘Go to Bed!’
I remember as a kid playing hide and seek. After the count – the seeker would yell these three words - Ready or Not – followed by another three words – Here I Come!
Then there is an expression of these powerful words that many of us crave to hear, to receive, to feel, to sense, to believe – I love you. When the right person, the person we long for to hear these words from – says, I love you – …. (it’s everything)
God knew something about these words – I love you… For God so loved the world that God gave us Jesus.
We are in the final days of Jesus’ journey more than 2000 years ago. He made his triumphal entry into Jerusalem – a place that forever connected the last week of his life. – the Last Supper, the betrayal, the arrest, the judgement and the crucifixion. It was in this place on a cross that Jesus uttered three words that made all the difference in the world – It is finished.
These words beg the question – what is finished?
On the onset, we could answer with – the betrayal, the mistrust, the brutality of the physical pain that Jesus endured, the pain of his closest confidants. Now that Jesus was on the cross, he would no longer have to endure any more pain. Is that what Jesus meant by saying – It is finished?
The Greek word for it is finished is teleho – meaning to bring to a close, to complete, to fulfill, paid. If for a few moments, we focus on the words to fulfill and paid, in this context, we now more fully understand when Jesus uttered the words it is finished he was saying that everything that he had been asked to do everything that he came in the form of a human to do has been fulfilled.
The fulfillment of the prophecies of the ancient texts, the foreshadowing of the coming Messiah. In Isaiah 53 – we read of the suffering servant - he was pierced for our transgressions; he was crushed for our iniquities;
We understand in the New Testament that Jesus’ work and witness was about saving humanity, reconciling humanity for our sins, and bringing us into a full relationship with God.
Luke’ Gospel, chapter 19 - For the Son of Man came to seek and to save the lost.”
In John’s record of the Gospel, chapter 10:9 – Jesus says 9 I am the gate. Whoever enters by me will be saved... I came that they may have life and have it abundantly.11 “I am the good shepherd. The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep.
In Paul’s letter to Romans, chapter 3 he reminded the community - for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by God’s grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus…
For some of us, sin is a word that we may not like to talk about, think about or touch. As Christians we believe the sins of the world could not be paid by any other means. Jesus made it possible by absorbing and taking away the sins of the world.
In Paul’s second letter to the community in Corinth, he writes - All this is from God, who through Christ reconciled us to himself and gave us the ministry of reconciliation; 19 that is, in Christ, God was reconciling the world to himself, not counting their trespasses against them…
When Jesus was on the cross and uttered those three words – It is finished – Jesus was testifying to God – all of this is fulfilled, the debt is paid.
Jesus conquered death. And God’s love was again poured out for us. There is nothing that we can do to erase, erode or escape God’s love for us. Yes, even with all our faults and failures. We know this also through the writings of Apostle Paul – “I am convinced that neither death nor anything else in all creation can separate us from the love of God through Jesus Christ our Lord.”
Jesus came to this world, fully divine and fully human. He came to be the incarnate Truth. ------ Fulfilled – Paid.
My friends, what are we to do about this? How are we in our lives moving to finished?
Even though Jesus’s earthly life is over as a human, he fulfilled what God set out for him to do. Now, the work of his heart continues through this day and the next and so on and so on.
As I sat quickly yesterday, I imagined myself hearing the cries and shouts of the crowd as Jesus endured the injustices inflicted by the political leaders of the Empire.
Might the words that Jesus uttered on that cross give us hope and propel us to commit ourselves a fresh and anew to transform our work and witness through our actions.
Today, we hear the cries and shouts of children and youth calling for political leaders and the Empire to protect them from the injustices of gun violence in their schools.
We know all too well the stories of black and brown people being brutalized by the establishment. Today I hear the gut wrenching cries of Stephon Clark’s brother and grandmother and other family and friends in Sacramento, CA for justice over the brutality inflicted on Stephon by the establishment – unarmed and 20 bullets piercing his body, killing him.
I deposit in your spirit today, - in moving to finished – we keep employing ourselves in acts of love, justice and mercy in our communities and beyond.
As we look back at Jesus’ journey, his was the work of ministry with the poor, the suffering, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised, the discounted and the disregarded.
Might we keep showing up to participate in rallies for our lives, sanctuary movements, sacred resistance, black lives matter. Join with people of faith and good will to Unite to End Racism. Why? Because in Jesus’ earthly life, he showed us the way.
Moving to finished is hard work, it’s painful work, it’s necessary work. And most of all because we know Jesus is with us, it’s liberating work.
This is the work of Good Friday. What’s so good about a day that is so dark and painful? Because on this day, we wait and hope. And we realize that the crucifixion helps us to know that resurrection would not be possible without a stop on the cross.
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