Finished

Someone said with age comes wisdom. I pray that’s true. I seem to be getting the aging thing down to a science. I am waiting for wisdom to show up.

I walked in the dark this week.  Thinking about this weekend.  This is it, the weekend upon which that the entire story rests.

Without the cross, there is nothing.  Without the empty tomb, we are empty of hope. 

I watched how the sunrise tossed just enough light to see the yellow of the forsythia and the purple of the violets.  Spring.  It announces life.

The cross, - death to life.  Sorrow to salvation.  Undone to finished.

John used the word I have come to love, the one place where we read His holy “finished.” For years, I have credited Him with organizing His day the same way I do mine.  A list of chores, success with each tick of the list.  What I can finish is who I am, how good I feel, how well I end my day.

I look hard through scripture once again humanizing the divine, attempting to find me in Him instead of Him in me.

Finished, not just done, it is Tetelestai,  paid in full.  This was not his chore, his duty, his task for the day.  This was a life offered in payment for mine and yours. 

Innocent for guilty. 

Eternal for damned. 

Holy for blemished. 

It causes me to look harder at my list.  Why is it I busy myself?  Has it become my worth to feel in charge?  Do any of the dozen things I accomplish today have any impact on eternity?

Do I work to anesthetize myself to the pain of my own need? I need to feel the weight of my guilt to understand the gift of my salvation. His life is the freedom from our death.  His resurrection the keys to our eternity.

I shift.  It is not what I do.  It is what He has done.  Finished.  Our Holy Forever.

         

“made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions—it is by grace you have been saved.” Ephesians 2:5