It is Finished

Seven Last Words Service at St David of Wales
April 22, 2011

"It is Finished" john 19:30

40 days ago more or less we smeared ashes on our foreheads and decided to walk for a time with our mortality held gently in front of us.
we are people who will die
we are people who will return to dust.
and we hold our fragile little lives so carefully.
but for the past 40 days we have walking in the company of Jesus who does not guard his life at all, but instead pours out the human life that all of heaven and earth bent to witness. He is reckless and overly generous with this incarnation.

so today it is finished
everything Jesus came to do is finished.

we need to forget for a day if we can that he will open his eyes on the 3rd day and say
“it Begins”
we need to forget because in order to get to the beginning we must stay here at the end.

it is finished.

the Jesus that I am in love with met me, and I met him.
I met him on the road to Emmaus,
I met him on the road to Damascus,
I met him by the well,
I met him on the streets of Nashville,
I met him in the bread and
I met him in the wine,

this Jesus-
the one whose laugh created the universe-
the one who breathes peace into a wounded world,
the one who walks with us now
walked the earth in a body just like ours,
and that body shifted beneath his mother’s ribcage in the night,
and that body ran in the sunlight as a boy
and that body morphed into a man as community watched
and that body touched the sick
held the children
washed the feet
broke the bread
drank the wine
and then died.

he died.
it is finished.