All Saints Lutheran Church
Pastor Raita Neely
Good Friday - Gospel of John "It is Finished."
April 9, 2004

The silence and simplicity that surround us, gathered as a Christian community on Good Friday, are meant to focus our minds and hearts on the centrality of God's redemptive love poured out for us in the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ. The readings are not concerned with our personal feelings in relationship to Christ's passion. Rather they proclaim what God has done for us in Christ. At the same time they bid us to receive the gift of God's love in our lives. We bring our wounded lives as individuals, as a community and as members of the human family. Here we are embraced by the crucified one so that our lives can be renewed. His death sends a stream of new life racing as a torrent of healing and peace through all the ruins and desert places of our hearts. By Christ's wounds we are healed anew to life and the compassionate service of others.

John's Gospel begins with the good news of Jesus Christ - "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. And the Word became flesh and lived among us." Bone and muscle, brain and nerves, lungs and heart, eyes and ears, hands and feet. God with us in the human struggle.

When God took the form of Jesus the Christ, light entered into and shone in the darkness of our world. John immediately gives us ultimate hope in saying, "The light shines in our darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it." (Jn1:5) The light comes to illuminate the darkness, to push it back, to bring us out of the darkness.

At the climax of the struggle between darkness and light we come to the cross. Even here, Jesus the light is in charge. He asserts his authority. In the Garden of Gethsemane he acknowledges who he is. From the cross he instructs John and Mary to take care of each other. He fulfills Scripture by asking for a drink. The light shines even on the darkest day in history.

Obedient to the Father, he bows his head, whispers - "It is finished", gives up his spirit and dies. But what is finished?

For the ambitious Pilate it means one more Jewish "Messiah" eliminated. It was expedient for Jesus to die. It might even mean a promotion or at least a good report card from Rome.

For the religious leaders Jesus had to be finished off if they were to maintain control and power. Be done with him, soon enough the people would forget his teaching and healing. Then things would be back to normal.

For the disciples finished meant the end of a hope and a dream. They had thought that Jesus would free them from Rome, in spite of Jesus telling them that he would die. The disciples lost courage and ran away, for them darkness had overcome the light.


For Jesus "finished" meant complete obedience to God. Jesus had fulfilled his purpose, he had done what God had ordained. He voluntarily gave his life to God's great plan.

We Christians have often fooled ourselves by pretending that the story of Good Friday is about Romans and Jews. As long as we have villains, we can be far removed - bystanders, critics, judges. But this is not a story that happened long ago in a land far away.

God's children are killed in every generation. They have been killed in holy and unholy wars, in inquisitions, prison cells, and concentration camps. They have been murdered in Cape Town, Memphis, El Salvador, Palestine, Israel and many other places. The Light still has a lot of battle to do with the darkness. The Light is still in charge. For the Light is truth. In the presence of Jesus' integrity, our own pretense is exposed. In the presence of his constancy, our cowardice is brought to light. In the presence of his fierce love for God and for us, our hardness of heart is revealed. In the brilliance of Christ's light we either fall down to worship him or do everything we can to extinguish his light.

To those of us still immersed in the struggle of life's darkness, from the cross comes the Word made flesh. "No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" (Jn. 15:13) "I have chosen you out of the world." (Jn. 15: 19) "Love one another as I have loved you." (Jn.15:12) "You are the light of the world." ( Mt.5:14) "I am with you always, to the end of the age." (Mt. 28:20b)

Let us pray: O God, we pray this night: for all who have a song they cannot sing, for all who have a burden they cannot bear, for all who live in chains they cannot break, for all who wander homeless, for those who are sick and for those who tend them, for those who wait for loved ones and wait in vain, for those who live in hunger and for those who will not share their bread, for those who are misunderstood, and for those who misunderstand, for those who are captives and for those who are captors, for those whose words of love are locked within their hearts and for those who yearn to hear those words. Let you light overcome our darkness and have mercy upon us all. Amen.