It Is Finished
A picture can make you think of the Cross. Only He can finish the work.
Creation is not thin. It is older than your questions and stranger than most sermons. Oaks hold on. Scarlet comes from small lives people once crushed for holy cloth. A hillside takes the weather and does not explain itself. If you have ever looked at something living and thought of Friday, you were not being foolish. You were noticing that the world is capable of rhyme.
Rhyme is not payment.
The goal of this message is not to give you a better insect. It is to set your weight on a sentence spoken from a real throat on a real piece of wood.
“When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John 19:30
What He Was Doing on the Wood
Before any picture, there is a psalm. When the sky went dark, Jesus did not invent a cry. He opened a book His people already knew.
“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?“ Psalm 22:1 · Matthew 27:46
That first line was a way of naming the whole song. Psalm 22 is scorn and thirst. It is hands and feet. It is garments on the ground. It is a man treated as less than a man, and then, before the psalm is over, praise that runs out to the nations. He was not decorating His death. He was locating it.
“But I am a worm and not a man, scorned by everyone, despised by the people.” Psalm 22:6
That verse is humiliation. It is the Holy One standing where men spit. It is not a field guide. Do not let anyone teach you that Jesus paused on the Cross to label Himself a grub. He took the lowest place. Isaiah had already said He would be despised and rejected. The psalm and the prophet are enough. They do not need a creature to make them true.
A Picture That Made Me Think of the Cross
Still — creation is complex, and it is interesting in that way. There is an old preacher’s picture some of us have heard. I will hold it up the way you hold a lantern. Then I will set it down.
In the language of Israel, the same word-family that can mean a lowly worm is also the name behind the sanctuary scarlet — the deep red used for holy cloth. That colour came from a small life that lives on oak. She fixes there. When her work is done she is spent. What men took from her body was the red they used to mark the holy place.
That is all I am saying. A life on wood. A colour that marked a people. It made me think of the Cross.
It is not what Psalm 22:6 is doing. David is saying he has been reduced below the status of a man. The picture can make your chest tight. The psalm tells you why the tightness belongs to Him. If you carry the picture home, carry it as a picture. Do not file it under prophecy. Do not make a Christian hold the timetable of a bug as if the atonement depended on it. The Cross does not need the illustration. The illustration needs the Cross, or it is only nature with better lighting.
The Work That Was Completed
Friday is not a mood. It is a sentence finished.
“The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life — only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” John 10:17–18
He was not trapped on the wood. He stayed. That is different. A picture of a small life that cannot crawl away is not the same as a Son who could have called twelve legions and did not.
“But God demonstrates his own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” Romans 5:8
“This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down his life for us.” 1 John 3:16
Love, in this book, is not a warmth you work up. It is a body given. The children live because the Parent died. That is not a metaphor borrowed from a tree. That is the gospel.
“But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God… For by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy.” Hebrews 10:12, 14
Sat down. That is the posture of a finished work. Priests in the old house kept standing because the blood was never quite enough. He sat down because it was.
“He forgave us all our sins, having cancelled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross.” Colossians 2:13–14
If you are still trying to add a payment, you have not heard the verb. Finished is not an invitation to improve the offering. Finished is the end of the offering. What you bring now is not coin. It is empty hands.
What Finished Does Not Mean
It does not mean sin was a rumour. The charge was real. That is why there was a nail.
It does not mean you will never bleed again. The people He finished the work for still live in Friday rooms. They still go to graves. They still fail the people they love. Finished is not a glaze over pain. Finished is the reason pain is not the last word.
It does not mean you may now treat holiness as optional. The same letter that says He sat down says He is making a people holy. The work that saves you is complete. The life that follows is not a second ransom. It is a response.
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.” Romans 8:1
No condemnation is not no correction. It is the difference between a Father who is for you and a court that is still open. The court closed at the ninth hour.
Come Off the Picture
If a story from the created world helped you feel the cost, thank God for the feeling. Then put your weight where the feeling cannot hold you.
Do not love the hook more than the wound. Do not become the kind of Christian who needs a new marvel every week to believe Friday happened. The marvel is not that an oak can stain. The marvel is that the Son of God stayed until there was nothing left to pay.
“He himself bore our sins in his body on the cross, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness; by his wounds you have been healed.” 1 Peter 2:24
That is the work. It is complete. It does not get more complete because a preacher found a rhyme in the woods. It does not get less complete because someone later said the rhyme was only a rhyme.
Look at Him. Not at the illustration. Not at your ability to be moved. Not at the next small proof that might keep doubt quiet for an afternoon.
“I have brought you glory on earth by finishing the work you gave me to do.” John 17:4
He finished it. You may come. It is finished.
The picture is not the payment. The wood already held Him.
The Music “The Work Is Done” – The Lyrics
Artist: Asa Wren
Verse 1
I have seen a hillside take the weather
I have seen an oak hold on
I have heard a preacher lift a picture
From a life that stains the dawn
It made me think about the Friday
It made the quiet in me thin
But a rhyme out in creation
Is not the blood that covers sin
Verse 2
He did not quote a field of insects
When the noon went strange and still
He opened up a psalm of scorn
And drank that cup down to the fill
“My God,” He said, and all the holy
Heard the first line name the rest
A worm, and not a man, they made Him —
The lowest place, and not a guess
Chorus
It is finished — the work is done
He stayed upon the wood
Not a picture I can carry
But a payment that is good
He laid His life down of His choosing
No man took it from the Son
So come with empty hands, believer —
It is finished. The work is done.
Verse 3
The old house kept its priests still standing
The bowl was never quite enough
He offered once, and then He sat down
And called the long night’s labour done
He nailed the charge against my name there
He did not leave a line unpaid
By His wounds the healing found me
By His wounds the debt was laid
Chorus
It is finished — the work is done
He stayed upon the wood
Not a picture I can carry
But a payment that is good
He laid His life down of His choosing
No man took it from the Son
So come with empty hands, believer —
It is finished. The work is done.
Bridge
This is how we know what love is
He laid His life down for his friends
While we were still the ones in error
Mercy met us at the end
I will not love the hook more dearly
Than the wound that bought the peace
A lantern in the woods may guide you —
It cannot pay the least
Final chorus
It is finished — the work is done
He stayed upon the wood
Not a picture I can carry
But a payment that is good
He laid His life down of His choosing
No man took it from the Son
So come with empty hands, believer —
It is finished. The work is done.
Tag
It is finished.
Come off the picture.
The wood already held Him.
