Note: I’ve been away for a three-day conference, so forgive me if we hop back to Good Friday. Here is my contribution to an ecumenical Good Friday service focusing the words Jesus spoke on the cross.
“Then, when he had tasted the vinegar, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” — John 19:30
I studied classical archaeology at CU, both as an undergrad and in grad school. During a Greek translation class, one of my professors dissected this story, asking what, exactly, was finished. Jesus’ ministry hadn’t changed the world as far as this professor was concerned. It had merely gotten Jesus killed, leaving his followers to make up stories about a second coming.
So much for Christianity.
There are likely many contemporaries of Jesus who looked around at a broken world and felt the same way as that professor. Their best hope for the promised Messiah had just been crucified. Judea was still occupied by Rome. The line of David had not been re-established.
Why, then, did Jesus say, “It is finished” when so much remained to be done in this world?
Jesus, of course, spoke Aramaic. John was written in Greek. But let’s assume that the author did his best to be truthful to the intent of Jesus’ words in his mother tongue.
The Greek word used in John is “tetelestai.” Ancient Greek is a complicated language, and, as with any translation, some of the meaning of the word is lost when we read it in English.
Dana and Mantey, a popular Greek grammar text, tells us: “No element of Greek language is of more importance to the student of the New Testament than the matter of tense.”
Tetelestai is third person singular perfect tense. In ancient Greek, the perfect tense is a combination two other tenses—the aorist tense, which indicates something happened at a specific point in time, and the present tense, which contains an implied sense of continuation.
That’s a strange concept for English speakers.
A more awkward but more accurate translation of “Tetelestai” might be, “It is finished and continues.” Or “It is accomplished, and it goes on.”
Biblical scholars have offered many interpretations of this, some suggesting that the author of John meant to say that the power of sin had been broken for all time. Others points out that the word “tetelestai” was written across the bottom of loan documents to indicate that a debt had been paid in full. In their view, Jesus was saying, “The debt is paid.”
But I have a different take.
As a young mother raising two sons in Boulder, I spent as much time in nature with them as I could. We stopped now and then to toss rocks into a lake near our house and watch the ripples spread. As a parent, one is always trying to teach. So, I told my kids that they could think of the rock as an action or event and the ripples as consequences. They quickly latched onto the metaphor as only children can. I recall my younger son throwing a rock into a lake and shouting, “Martin Luther King Jr,” and then watching as the ripples spread to the shore.
The perfect tense in Greek is exactly like that. An event occurs, and the ripples spread.
In this case, the event is Jesus’ death on the cross.
But what about the ripples?
During his ministry on this earth, Jesus gave us specific work to do. He gave us our own mission. You can find it in Luke 10:27. It’s not cryptic or vague.
It says, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind’ and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
Love God with everything you are, and love your neighbor—who happens to be everyone—as yourself.
For much of my life, when I read or listened to the stories of the Nativity or Christ’s crucifixion, I wished I’d been there to help. What a difference I would have made! Oh, yes!
If only I’d been there in 32 A.D, I would have carried that cross. I would have held up a sponge with pure water, not vinegar. I would have slipped Jesus an oxy. I would surely have done something to ease his suffering.
Martin Luther addressed what must be a fairly common Christian fantasy in one of his Christmas Eve sermons. Referring to Jesus’ birth in a stable, he said, “There are many of you in this congregation who think to yourselves, ‘If only I had been there. How quick I would have been to help the baby’ … You say that because you know how great Christ is. But if you had been there at that time, you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Childish and silly thoughts are these.”
Then he goes on to offer this radical suggestion: “Why don’t you do it now? …. You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him. …. For what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.”
You mean there is work I should be doing today?
What an inconvenient lesson that is.
Now back to the cross as Jesus draws his last breath.
Tetelestai. It is finished.
The work God started through Jesus in that stable in Bethlehem was finished on the cross at Golgotha. It was finished, and it will continue to be finished—by us … with God’s help.
We are the ripples.
Jesus finished his earthly mission on the cross, dying to show us the meaning of love. But our mission, the work he gave us, continues. We were born to partner with Christ in mending the hurts of this world through acts of mercy and kindness.
That’s a big job, but as the Jewish text “The Chapters of Our Fathers” states, “You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it.”
Tetelestai. It is finished.
And the effort—our working partnership with our Creator—continues.
