Death is Finished!

Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit (John 19:30).
WHEW!  –finished cleaning those storm windows for another year. FINALLY! –finished weeding that garden. . . at least for a few weeks. AT LAST! –finished with all of my school assignments. . . or at least until next fall. WHAT A RELIEF! –finished with all the middle-of-the-night feedings—until the next child.
No matter how task-oriented we are, there is just nothing quite like being finished. However, most tasks we know of in this life are rarely ever finished forever. For us, that “finished” label almost always requires some sort of asterisk. Storm windows get dirty again. Weeds grow back thicker than the first time. Graduation turns school assignments into real home work like “honey-do” lists, piles of laundry that seem never to end, or job-tasks that never let up. The end of your child’s middle-of-the-night feedings turn into worrying about your children’s whereabouts in the middle of the night. Realities like this make a person wonder what “finished” really means.
During the season of Lent, we consider very carefully the never-finished problem of our sins. This is a burden that is with us from our conception (Psalm 51:5). Knowing God’s Word is true, we know that sin continually affects our hearts and minds all our lives (Genesis 6:5). We may think that our day-to-day tasks are draining until we consider this never-ceasing burden of sin. Lent can become very depressing as we peer directly into the consequence of all this sin, our sin—“the wages (payment) for sin is death” (Romans 6:23).
But staring at sin all throughout Lent, sin that leads us to its final consequence, death, serves to point us to the one thing that we can and must know is finished—death itself.
While sin and its earthly results continue, sin’s eternal consequence has been done away with. Jesus’ purpose in entering this world was to take on sin’s eternal consequence for us. That is why He was named Jesus, because He would “save His people from their sins” (Matthew 1:21). Our sins show us death, Jesus’ death, as He “gave His life as a ransom (payment) for many” (Matthew 20:28). Jesus came to this earth to die. But when His task was complete, it was not done for a short time, for a year, for ten or two thousand years. It was done for all time, as Scripture states that Jesus sacrificed for our sins “once for all when He offered up Himself” (Hebrews 7:27). His death was the death of death. That is why Jesus said, without asterisk, “It is finished!” (John 19:30).
All our work and efforts produce still more unfinished business. Not so with Jesus’ effort. His purpose was taking on sin’s lasting consequence—death—and He has; death is finished. God’s gift to you is eternal life in Christ Jesus your living Lord (Romans 6:23b).
Kyle Madson is co-pastor at St. John’s Lutheran Church in Frankenmuth, Michigan.