It Is Finished: John 19:17-30

Carrying his own cross, he went out to the place of the Skull (which in Aramaic is called Golgotha).

Carrying his own cross. The vertical beam awaited at the site; the horizontal crossbar Jesus carried through Jerusalem's streets. The place of the Skull—Golgotha, Calvary. A hill shaped like a skull, or a place of execution where skulls accumulated.

There they crucified him, and with him two others—one on each side and Jesus in the middle.

Three crosses. Two criminals flanking the central figure. Jesus in the middle—the position of prominence, even in death.

Pilate had a notice prepared and fastened to the cross. It read: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS.

The titulus—the placard declaring the crime. Pilate wrote it himself. INRI: Iesus Nazarenus Rex Iudaeorum.

Many of the Jews read this sign, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and the sign was written in Aramaic, Latin and Greek.

Three languages. Aramaic for the Jews, Latin for the Romans, Greek for the world. The universal proclamation of an ironic truth.

The chief priests of the Jews protested to Pilate, Do not write The King of the Jews, but that this man claimed to be king of the Jews.

They wanted revision. He claimed—past tense, false claim. Pilate refused.

Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written.

Final. Permanent. The king's title remained. Pilate's one act of defiance in the whole sordid affair.

When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes, dividing them into four shares, one for each of them, with the undergarment remaining.

Soldiers' perks—the condemned man's clothing. Four soldiers, four shares.

This garment was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom.

Seamless. A valuable tunic, possibly priestly in style. Too fine to tear.

Let's not tear it, they said to one another. Let's decide by lot who will get it.

Gambling beneath the cross. A dice game while God died overhead.

This happened that the scripture might be fulfilled that said, They divided my clothes among them and cast lots for my garment. So this is what the soldiers did.

Psalm 22, written a thousand years earlier, described this moment exactly.

Near the cross of Jesus stood his mother, his mother's sister, Mary the wife of Clopas, and Mary Magdalene.

Four women. Standing where the disciples had fled. Mary his mother watched her son die—the sword Simeon had predicted piercing her soul.

When Jesus saw his mother there, and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to her, Woman, here is your son, and to the disciple, Here is your mother.

Even dying, Jesus provided. He entrusted his mother to the beloved disciple—John himself. A new family forged at the cross.

From that time on, this disciple took her into his home.

John took Mary. Jesus' instruction obeyed immediately.

Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty.

Thirst. The creator of water, parched. The one who offered living water, dying of thirst. Everything finished—except this final fulfillment.

A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus' lips.

Hyssop—the same plant used to paint blood on doorframes at the first Passover. Now lifting sour wine to the Lamb of God.

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, It is finished. With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Tetelestai. It is finished. Not a cry of defeat but a shout of completion. Accomplished. Paid in full. Done.

He bowed his head—the deliberate action of laying down to sleep. And gave up his spirit—not taken but given. Voluntary until the last breath.

It is finished. Three words that changed everything. The sacrifice accepted. The debt paid. The work accomplished. Sin's penalty satisfied. Death itself soon to be defeated.

The Lamb of God, slain before the foundation of the world, now slain in time and space. The Word made flesh, unmade by death, soon to be remade in resurrection.

It is finished. But it was only beginning.