The Easter Word: "It is Finished!"

photo by James Tissot / flickr

We begin today where we left off last week. At the foot of the cross. Week after week we have listened to the last words that Jesus spoke from the cross. The first word he spoke from the cross: “Father forgive them…And then, to a thief he said: “Today you shall be with me in paradise…” The third word may be the tenderest: “Mother…Behold your son, John…” And then he said: “Why hast thou forsaken me?” And then that terrible word out of pain and delirium he said:”I thirst…” And then there toward the end as his life was slipping away he prayed: “Father…Father…” 

But there is one more word from the cross. It was the last thing Jesus said. “It is  finished.” It was a word of completion. In the Greek the word reads: “tetelestai.”It is finished. 

Jesus’ time had run out. The scourging and the pain and the heat had taken their toll. So he bowed his head and said, “It is finished.” Tetelestai. What did it mean, this last word? The gospels say that this was a loud cry.  A mighty shout. Tetelestai. The word in Greek was an exclamation. The root word is telos. It means achievement. Fulfillment. Completion. The New English Bible translates the phrase: “It is accomplished.”

Most, standing there, did not hear the words as a triumph. How could they? Even the

 photo by Charles Meeks / flickr

disciple and his Mother. They looked up at blood and gore and remembered a rigged trial and the unfairness of it all. No they could hear no triumph in what he said. All they could see was a slow and terribly dying. Surely it was a word of defeat.

But they and we hear it wrong. This finishedness was no defeat. Jesus had done what he came to do. Calling sinners to repentance. Saying in his first sermon: I came to preach good news to the poor. And we have missed it. I came to release the captives—even those whose bodies are marked with tattoos and faces as hard as rocks. Them too? He also said he had come to bring sight to the blind and liberty to all the oppressed and to say right now…right now this is God’s time. They wanted him to judge and to underline their prejudices. And to side with them in despising all the outsiders. No wonder even at the beginning they tried to push him off as cliff. His heart was just too big.

But how wrong they were. He came too make them more human and kinder. To take off the burdens of everyone and forgive their sins. To wipe away all the things they hated about themselves. He came for the weary and heavy-laden. young, the rich, the restless, the hookers, the tax collectors and fishermen and farm boys. Everybody!

And so what he said there at the end was this: I have finished what I came to do. It is accomplished! The Lamb of God that takes away the sins of the world has done just that. Tetelestai!

Maybe it means that we don’t have to hang on some cross. That we perfectionists don’t have to work so hard to be liked and successful and to feel good about ourselves. Too quit all this judging of all the people that are not like us. Folks, it is finished. And this is why we sing allleluias and haul out these lilies and even buy our Easter bonnets. We can put down our weapons. We can love one another: even fundamentalists and liberals and Democrats and Republicans and all those in-between. And if we can’t love them at least, he says, we can try to love them.

In my first church and my first Easter we had what we called an opening assembly at Sunday School and everybody sat in the same room to make announcements and greet one another and see who was missing. And the Sunday School Superintendent turned around to his new-green preacher and said: “Preacher don’t you think it would be wonderful to let all the boys and girls march around the church while we sing: 'In your Easter bonnets with all the frills upon it.' What do  you think?" I almost fainted. And I said back to him: “No, I don’t think we should do that.” And he snarled back, “Then we won’t do it!” I made a mistake. Probably the best thing I could do in that drab room on Easter with all those tired farmers sitting there would be to let the kids march. To celebrate Easter. Tacky as it was I now believe Jesus would have approved.  

You see, the last word has been spoken. And they took his lifeless body down, down from the cross. And as Mary cradled her boy’s broken body in her arms the others, mostly women, just stood there sad and grief-stricken. There was nothing left to say. And God bless him, Joseph of Arimathea  stepped up to the mother and said, “I have a tomb you can use.” And this was followed by black Saturday. The saddest day. Remember Emily Dickinson’s poem: The Morning after Death.” The house is quiet. You just sit there. There is nothing to say. And that was the way it was for Jesus’ mother and her friends. Just nothing to say.

used by permission Easter Morning 37 / flickr

And then came Sunday. John’s story may be the best. Mary Magdalene came. Just to see him for the last time. But the tomb was empty. Empty. And she ran to tell the others that someone had stolen Jesus’ body. And the others came to see for themselves. Sure enough Jesus body was not there. So they left and Mary Magdalene just stayed there. Weeping. Weeping. And somebody she thought was the Gardener spoke and said, “Why are you weeping? “And she said, “They have taken away my Lord’s body!” And she thought she had heard that voice before. And then this stranger called her name: “Mary…Mary.” And she knew who it was. He called her name and told her to go and tell the others. And she did. And now we know the rest of the story. Not only did he call her name. But he also calls our names. Jim and Brenda and Mark and Sally and Edna and Joe. Oh we do know the rest of the story. The gospel is still working on our unfinishedness. As he worked on Mary’s that morning.

We all have so much that is not finished. Marriage stuff. Family stuff. Sex stuff. Money stuff. Anger stuff. Depression stuff. Church stuff. Selfishness stuff. Hurt stuff. Every one in this room has brought something unfinished with us today.

As I was writing this sermon I remembered a story that I think says so much. This story is true. Kay Chance is a Methodist preacher said that one day her husband of 22 years came in and said he wanted a divorce. He had found someone younger and prettier. Kaye was devastated. So she began to try to piece her life back together. Hard business. She was separated for two years before the divorce was finalized. She kept thinking maybe he would come back and they could start all over again. 

One day the Pastor she worked with sat across the desk listening to her as he had done so often. The Pastor told her he wanted to give her something. He reached in his desk and pulled out a plastic easter egg. “One day you are going to have to bury the relationship with your husband. Not now. Your pain is too fresh. But I want you to hold on to this egg. Put it somewhere so you can see it. When the time comes you will know what to do with it.”

photo by Charles Rodstrom / flickr

She put the egg on her bedside table and she looked at it all the time. Asking, "When Lord—when. What do I do with this egg?” Six months later she was served with the divorce papers. She had to fly to Myrtle Beach where the divorce would be finalized. She and her 16 year old son boarded the plane.

In the lawyer’s office they sat across from each other and discussed in clinical terms who got what. They fought about visitation rights and insurance and everything. Finally it was over and she and her son walked down to the beach. She told him to sit on the bank and wait—she had something she had to do.  She walked down to the water. 

She took from her purse that Easter egg the Pastor had given her months before. She had put inside the plastic egg a picture taken of all three of them the Christmas before they separated. She filled the egg with sand to weight it down and wrapped it with tape. And she threw it as far as she could throw the into the water. “God,” she prayed, “bring new life out of this death. Bring some kind of resurrection from this grave.” The egg hit the water and she turned and walked back up the beach toward the son. They fell into each other’s arms crying and crying.

Then they walked to the car. Her back was to the water. She said she wanted to turn around and see if the egg had drifted toward the shore. Maybe her husband would come back and they could start over again. But in her heart she knew better—and she never looked back. She wrote later that the act of throwing away that egg was her first funeral as Pastor.

I told that story one Easter and found her address and sent her a copy of the sermon. Kaye wrote back and said her story was not quite over. The letter said she had moved on. It had been very hard. She was called to be an Associate of a large church in Georgia. At the new church she had met a wonderful man and they were to be married soon. She ended the letter by saying, ”New life really does happen after all.”

The God who finished his work on the cross reaches out his arms to all our unfinishedness. And on Easter as the flowers and trees begin to bloom—we are reminded that life begins again. So, like Kaye we put inside our egg whatever it is that hurts and brings pain. We try to put it behind us. Knowing that Easter is real. And Paul’s words are true: “I am sure that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.” So this last word may be the best word. It is finished. And he calls our names. Thanks be to God!

photo by Rod Waggington / flickr

(This sermon was preached at the First Presbyterian Church, Pendleton SC , Easter Sunday, 2018)

--Roger Lovette / rogerlovette.blogspot.com