Devotion 373 - finished

The only time the words 

“It is finished,” are uttered in the Word is in the Gospel of John.

In my task oriented, get it done, stay up one more hour, set the alarm a few minutes earlier, make one more list and do one more thing mindset; these words mean something so powerful.

These three little enormous words mean absolutely everything. He could have said, “Paid in full,” but really that doesn’t do the deed justice.  This was the fulfillment of the beginning and the end.

In finishing, He began something in us that will never end.  He handed us grace, He handed us mercy and He handed us eternity. Every Easter I think about this and the anomaly of it all shreds me.

He FINSIHED and yet, He never seems to tire, or finish, or get weary of us.

Every Easter as I pack little baskets for my four children, I relive an Easter of my youth.  Most every Easter was spent travelling.  It was spent by a lake with fishing poles and sunrise services.  It was spent with family and plastic eggs stuffed with fun and my heart opened big every year to the message of the Gospel.

Until one Easter I decided I didn’t want to go.  I didn’t want to fish, and I didn’t want to travel.  Some friends and I had conspired together and bought concert tickets.  Mom and Daddy had helped and supported our efforts and shared in our excitement.  I was a wee girl, maybe twelve years old and it was our very favorite TV star and singer.

To my personal dread,  we all suddenly realized as the week approached, the concert was over Easter weekend. The timing had escaped me and my parents.  It didn’t matter to my friends, they spent Easter at home; to me, it meant a choice I grieved making.

We talked, I cried.  My brother seemed satisfied to travel with Daddy.  Mother, the saint she was seemed satisfied to spend Easter alone with just me.  I went to the concert.  

And Easter morning came. Mother greeted me as the sun rose with a lovely basket.  We sat just the two of us on my canopy bed and the selfishness of my choice almost choked me.

Every Easter I think about those moments.  How putting myself ahead of my family cost me, dearly. I would never have that sunrise service back by the lake.  I would never have that Easter lunch.  I would not share marshmallow eggs with my cousins.   And I learned mamas and daddies take on a little bit of Jesus every time they part with part of their heart for their children.

Mother and Daddy knew without a shadow of a doubt their sacrifice would teach me a lesson I would never forget.  And some four decades later that lesson blows in like fresh air in spring time.

And I am so very glad when He finished, He did not finish with me. Every year I recollect my choices, my decisions, my wants and my desires, and every year I pray I am less selfish than the year before.

You see, Easter is my New Year.  It is my time to make resolutions.  The calendar has nothing to do with it, it’s the resurrection.  I want to be more like Him and every year I hope I fail just a little less.

It fractures me that He had the power to walk away, to let the cup pass, for once in His eternal life to think of Himself instead of me and you,  but He didn’t.

He finished.  He fulfilled.  He paid.  He suffered.  He died.  And, He reconciled and rose. 

He destroyed death.  He released me and you from fear.  He finished and then whispered, but I am never finished with you. How filled with glory is the journey of finding Him.

 

Father, I want those you gave me to be with me, right where I am, So they can see my glory, the splendor you gave me,

Having loved me long before there ever was a world. Righteous Father, the world has never known you, But I have known you, and these disciples know that you sent me on this mission.

I have made your very being known to them— Who you are and what you do—

And continue to make it known, so that your love for me might be in them exactly as I am in them.  

John 17:  24-28 the message