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Woburn, MA 01801

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North Beverly Elementary School | 48 Putnam St.
Beverly, MA 01915

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IT IS FINISHED

by Kyle Asmus on March 31, 2018

 

If you knew you only had one-minute left with your closest family and friends what would be the last thing you would say to them? What would be the capstone sentence of your life?

John, one of Jesus’ disciples, is the only disciple present at Jesus’ crucifixion standing at the foot of the cross, and he actually hears Jesus’ final sentence. What’s incredible is Jesus only says 3 words, but they may be the most important thing Jesus ever said.

Here’s the scene.

John is watching Jesus suffocate to death. He’s see’s Jesus pushing up on the nail through his feet and pulling up on the nails through his wrist just so he can inhale. As Jesus gets weaker and weaker the agony gets worse and worse. John can see Jesus in his final minute. One last time Jesus pulls himself up, breathes, and finally says,

“It is Finished.”

And the reason it is finished is the most important thing Jesus ever said is because It is Finished is what makes Good Friday good.

Yes, they were the final words of the Cross, but they were also the first words of our freedom.

They’re our freedom because when Jesus says, “it is finished” what he means is…

My perfect obedience to the Father… it is finished, and they need it.

My total subjection to the Father’s Will…perfectly completed because they couldn’t do it.

The sacrifice and suffering and bloodshed necessary to cover sin… it’s satisfied because they couldn’t make it.

The cup of God’s wrath that was to be poured out …I drank through the last drop, so they wouldn’t have to.

It means Jesus did everything! There is nothing left to do!

It is Finished means God loves you and me to the point of death. It signifies that there is no length, no depth that God won’t descend into to bring you and me back to him.

It is Finished are the first words of our freedom.

And, I say that knowing full well that imany people who will be reading this do not feel free. Some feel trapped in a sin. Some feel chained to an addiction. Some feel insecure in who we are and who God calls us to be. Some doubt God’s goodness. Some wrestle with our faith. Some question God’s presence. Some feel joyless. Some feel hopeless, depressed. Some feel like failures. Some feel phony. Some feel apathetic towards the things of God.

And the scariest part is often times we don’t know even know why we feel these ways.

Because we know in our head that for those who are in Christ there is no condemnation. We know we’re free, and yet we here we sit…not feeling it… not experiencing it, and

some of us have been sitting for years, and that last thing we can relate to is Freedom.

And since we live in this weird tension, we must find ways to medicate what we think in our head with what we actually experience in our faith.

There’s two things I do, and I’m guessing there the same two things you do.

  1. We pull away from God, and retreat deeper into our dissatisfaction. Bury our head in the sand and pretend like God can’t see and doesn’t know all that were wrestling with. Or
  2. We just try harder—more church stuff. We pull ourselves up by our bootstraps and try to live more religious lives because we think if we do that, then we can feel the Freedom of Cross.

But please understand this, you’re not going to find any freedom until you embrace with all you are: It is Finished.

What I love about Good Friday is that it is here, with Christ on a Cross, that God publicly declared, “Kyle Asmus can’t do it on his own... Kyle, you can’t deal with your sin. Kyle, you can’t meet my standards. Kyle, you can’t live in a way that ultimately pleases me, and you can bury his head in the sand or try harder all you want but you’re only fooling yourself because left alone you’re hopeless. That’s Good Friday.

And yet, Good Friday is also God looking at you and me, directing our attention the Christ, and saying, “Rest…Rest because it is finished. There is nothing left for you to do.”

You will not find freedom by doing or trying—you’ll find it in resting in the finished work of Christ.

Stop pretending like you’re good when you’re not. Stop trying so hard. Look to Christ. Embrace the Cross and Rest.

And in the final minute of your life, my hope and prayer for me and for you, is that we can say, “My life was free. My life was lived resting in the finished work of Christ.