Daily Manna, Year Two · Day 166 · June 15
It Is Finished
“When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, he said, It is finished: and he bowed his head, and gave up the ghost.”
Nothing in that yard looked finished. The soldiers still had work in hand, the crowd had somewhere to be, and the men on either side were still alive. We hand this sentence to people whose lives are visibly mid-sentence, and it can land as a claim about their circumstances that their circumstances flatly contradict.
John is careful about what is being declared. Two verses earlier he writes that Jesus knew that all things were now accomplished, and the word in verse 30 belongs to the same family. The night before, Jesus had already told the Father what the finished thing was: I have finished the work which thou gavest me to do. The work. Hebrews prints the posture that follows it, and the posture is the argument: after he had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of God.
Lord Jesus, you said it with a mouthful of vinegar and no strength left, and you meant something exact. You did not say the world was mended. You said the work was done. We keep trying to finish it for you, adding a little to the account so that we can feel the ledger is honest, and every addition is an insult to the last thing you said. Take the additions away. We were not there and we could not have helped. You bowed your head and gave up the ghost, and there was nothing left owing.
Now stop reading and say nothing for two minutes. There is no sentence you can put after his.
Daily Manna runs on a two-year cycle. The year one reading for day 166 is The Secret of the Lord (Psalm 25:14).