Title: In Christ, it is finished!
Text: John19:17-30
29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
In May of 2018 Historic Trinity Lutheran Church in Milwaukee burned as fire consumed the old wood beams of a roof built in 1878 during restoration of the building. How it seemed to me like a reliving of events this past week with the tragic fire that consumed the roof at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris France in much the same way.
As the event unfolded the spire which had stood atop the roof for some 800 years bent and gave way to the work of the flames crashing into the inner surface of the church. Gasps could be heard from those who were there recording the events on their phones. Some speculated that the building could be a total loss.
One year after the Milwaukee fire the church in one the way to recovery as new roof beams are in place. France has already pledged millions to rebuild and French President Macrone has commented: “We will make Notre Dame even more beautiful!”
One commenter to the event on facebook asked, “Why didn’t God put the fire out?” Ultimately he did like he always does - working through the means provided; Firemen and water this time, doctors and nurses at other times, moms and dads so many times, and his only Son our Lord on Good Friday.
In Christ, it is finished and death has given way to the spire of Christ’s cross!
17 and [Jesus] went out, bearing his own cross, to the place called The Place of a Skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. 18 There they crucified him, and with him two others, one on both side, and Jesus between them.
As our opening illustration pointed out … there can be great value in disaster. It can bring people together. It can turn us in a way we might not expect. For the followers of Jesus this was to for a time, a disaster of great proportions.
The one in whom they had trusted and believed, who they had thought was the one, the Messiah, was now tried, crucified, and dead and in a manner not expected as that of a common criminal.
“But how can it be?” they might think. “In Him we we’re sure that the Kingdom would be restored and the power of the Romans broken. Now, we see only the one in whom we placed our hope gone; killed by the raging of the Jewish leaders, the scourging of the Roman guards and the cross of humiliating crucifixion.”
Maybe even asking: “Why didn’t God put the fire out?” As the anger burned against Jesus?
Even Pilate got his digs in for he wrote:
… an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, “Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
Those responsible for turning Jesus over to Pilate cried:
“[Don’t write that!] ‘The King of the Jews,’ but rather, ‘This man said, I am King of the Jews.’” “But Pilate had written what he had written and in the languages of Aramaic, Latin, and Greek so there was no mistaking what was said of him.”
“Jesus of Nazareth, the King of the Jews.”
The dead King of the Jews may have been the response that they all felt.
The world that we live in today too mocks this Jesus.
The question asked on facebook, “Why didn’t god put the fire out?” was really a question mocking God and those who have faith and have placed their trust in him. Saying in a sense, if your god is real why didn’t he save this beautiful cathedral from the destruction of the flames?
In Luke’s narrative of the crucifixion he writes:
35 And the people stood by, watching, but the rulers scoffed at him, saying, “He saved others; let him save himself, if he is the Christ of God, his Chosen One!” 36 The soldiers also mocked him, coming up and offering him sour wine 37 and saying, “If you are the King of the Jews, save yourself!” Luke 23:35-37
The name of Jesus and his cross remains an offense. Why?
Well, what if it is true? What if this Jesus is God and we are sinners as the bible says and what if there is no hope apart from trust in him? What if there is really a place called Hell and when we reject Him and His love and we receive the eternal separation and torment promised – and that we have chosen to reject him and remain in unbelief?
These and many other questions about Jesus and the cross cause anger to boil over in our world because it brings sinners sins to light and the law, as our Confirmation class learned in class, SOS, shows us our sins.
Many cling to their sins in this life and rail at the word of Christ.
Who is your God? Why didn’t he save the church? Why did he let your loved one die?
21 Martha said to Jesus, “Lord, if you had been here, my brother would not have died.”
But responds in Faith:
22 But even now I know that whatever you ask from God, God will give you.”
23 Jesus said to her, “Your brother will rise again.”24 Martha said to him, “I know that he will rise again in the resurrection on the last day.”
25 Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life. Whoever believes in me, though he die, yet shall he live, 26 and everyone who lives and believes in me shall never die. Do you believe this?”
The Rev. Scott Murray who sends out devotions through the email each weekday wrote:
The One who need not have been bound by chains and cords was bound by men who sought His death. The One who was the power of God, refused to let that power bring Him rescue. The One who had no fear of death became subject to death. The One who had no vices wrapped Himself in ours that He might free us from them. The One who is the triumphant King suffered His own skin to be nailed upon the stake as the trophy of His triumph over death. The One who hunted down death, allowed Himself to be devoured by it. He was pierced through that we might be made whole. The wood upon which He was set adrift under the storming wrath of God He fashions into the ship of our salvation. It is our cross too, but not a cross of punishment for us. Rather, He makes it the cross of salvation.
The One who was bound by the nails is bound that He might bind us to Himself through faith in Him. We, who might be bound to Him by force, are bound rather by His love for us; and that binding is the more powerful because it is His. Bound to Him by His passionate and bloody embrace, we no longer fear the bonds of death in our own lives.
Punishment cannot hold us, for He long ago took our punishment. Suffering cannot overwhelm us, because He suffered for us on the tree. Fear cannot defeat us, for there is nothing to fear that can harm us. The cross is the instrument of His death, and the source of our life. Come, blessed cross!
As we today remember the cross:
let us look to Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God. (Heb 12:2)
May the Love of God the blessings of Christ and the fellowship of the Holy Spirit be and abide with you now and forever.
In the name of the Father and of the Son + and of the Holy Spirit.
Amen
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