Sixth Word from the Cross: 'It Is Finished'

A Sermon originally preached on Good Friday 2013

John began his Gospel with echoes of the beginning of Genesis: ‘In the beginning was the Word.’ He goes on after his Prologue to set the scene for the beginning of Jesus’ ministry with a seven-day period of gathering disciples around himself, just as in the Book of Genesis, God sets the stage for the whole of human history with a seven-day period of creation. This is not coincidence.

What’s more, throughout the lead up to the story of the Passion, John tells of seven signs that Jesus performs, although he is quick to point out that there were many others that he didn’t write about. At seven points in John’s Gospel, Jesus will echo the name that God revealed to Moses in the burning bush: ‘I AM.’ I am the bread of life. I am the light of the world. I am the gate. I am the good shepherd. I am the Resurrection and the Life. I am the way, the truth, and the life. I am the vine. This recurring seven motif is not coincidence either. This is part of the great climax that John is building up to, and he knows darn well that he’s revisiting the themes of creation from Genesis.

When the first chapter of Genesis tells us about God creating the world in seven days, it’s actually telling us something far more significant than just how God made the world, or what he made it out of, or on what timetable he did it. It’s actually saying something quite profound about what Creation is for.

In the first three days of creation, God creates three domains, which are not quite the same as physical spaces. The first day, he creates light. The second day, he creates the sky and the seas. The third day, it’s the dry land and the vegetation on it. But on the second three days, he creates the ornaments of these domains, or the creatures to live in them. On the fourth day, he creates the sun, the moon, and the stars, to rule the domain of light. On the fifth day, he creates the birds and fish to live in the air and seas, respectively. Finally on the sixth day, he creates the animals to live on the land and to eat the plants. The principle seems to be that first there is a place for everything, and then everything is put in its place.

Interestingly enough, when the Book of Kings tells the story of Solomon building the Temple in Jerusalem, we also see the construction of the Temple in stages. We’re told about Solomon building the temple with three parts: a portico, a nave, and a sanctuary. When the building is complete, then we hear about the ornaments that are prepared for their respective places in the Temple. In case the parallels with Creation were too subtle, the author of the Book of Kings reminds us that it took Solomon seven years to build the Temple, and that they dedicated the Temple in the seventh month, and that they took seven days to celebrate, once it was dedicated.

The way Genesis describes creation is almost liturgical in style. Creation is described the way you would talk about building a temple, and with that realization, the depth of what Genesis is trying to tell us comes into even greater focus. In the ancient world, the very last thing that you do when you’ve built a shrine or a temple is to put the image of the god in it. The ancients weren’t necessarily naive enough to believe that their gods literally lived in the temples, but the idols they built were very real symbols of the gods’ presence, as well as being the focal point of worship. The climax of the construction of the Temple in Jerusalem was the point where the Ark of the Covenant, symbol of God’s presence, was brought into the Temple, so that God could symbolically dwell there.

So look what happens as the final stage of creation in Genesis. God says ‘Let us make mankind in our own image and likeness.’ If Genesis is telling us that all of Creation is a temple, to be a dwelling-place for God, then the human being placed in the heart of it is the symbolic representation of God dwelling in the midst of that temple. Only then, when all the work of the temple is completed, and the image is in place, can the god take his rest.

This is not a rest in the sense of collapsing from exhaustion at the end of a hard day’s work. This is instead the point where the new homeowners have finished building their house, when everything is furnished and ready, when they stand in the new living room, draw in a great breath of contentment, when they finally take up residence and are at peace in their new home. This is what the Sabbath rest of Genesis means: all is completed, all is finished, heaven and earth have been prepared as God’s temple, mankind has been placed in the midst of it to bear his image, and now in this fullness and completeness, God rests, before going back to work and carrying on his great project.

There are no coincidences in John's Gospel

So now look at what John says. Look at his use of the number seven, at his new creation. Look at the fact that all of this has been building to the one great climactic moment when Jesus dies on the Cross. Look at the fact that it’s now Good Friday, the sixth day of the week, the day when God created humanity in his image, when Pilate brought Jesus out to the Jews, declaring ‘Behold the man.’ This is not coincidence! John is echoing Genesis in order to say that in Jesus Christ, God is bringing about a new Creation, redeemed from the mess that we had made of the old.

We have reached only the Sixth Word, but for John, this is the last. There is no one Gospel that sequentially records all Seven Words from the Cross. Each evangelist picks and chooses, crafting the story in the way that best fits the theme of the story as he is telling it. For John, the final word is ‘It is finished,’ and this too is one final stroke in his grand depiction of the new creation.

Jesus is not saying ‘That’s all, folks.’ He’s not simply saying that his agony is finally over. What he’s saying is ‘It is accomplished.’ ‘It is completed.’ The new work of creation has been brought to its completion. Instead of the old, disobedient Adam, we are shown a new Adam, completely obedient to the Father: Behold the man. ‘It is finished.’ And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.