April 9, 2006

Lent Series – 6 (Palm Sunday)

Do you always finish what you start?  Those who always finish what they start are a rare breed.  People who hang in there.  Finish.  Stick to it until it is done.  Unfortunately, very few of us do that.  Our human tendency is to quit too soon.  Our human tendency is to stop before we cross the finish line.  Is that true about you?  Do you always finish what you start?  Or do you sometimes leave things undone?

Our inability to finish what we start can be seen in the small things:  A partly mowed lawn.  A half-read book.  Letters begun but never completed.  An abandoned diet.  A car up on blocks.  A half-finished basement.  But our inability to finish what we start also shows up in life’s most painful areas:  An abandoned child.  A cold faith.  A job hopper.  A wrecked marriage.  An unevangelized world.  (Lucado, No Wonder…p.38). Have I hit your guilt button?  Opened a painful sore?  Yes, friends, as imperfect human beings, we often fail to finish what we started.

But there is someone who never quit.  I want to take you back to the first Palm Sunday.  I want you to get a good look at the man riding a donkey into the city of Jerusalem with a crowd of people waving palm branches and cheering Him on.  There is a man who didn’t quit.  Ever.  As you see Him trotting in on that little donkey, determined to have each step take Him closer to Jerusalem, know this:  Jesus was coming to finish what He started.

As hard as the road that lay ahead of Him was, Jesus was determined to go through with it.  He was resolute.  He was facing something that made the many obstacles we have failed to overcome seem like nothing.  We have failed to finish things much easier.  Much simpler.  Much less painful.  But Jesus’ path into Jerusalem was going to lead Him to the ultimate suffering.  To the cross.  And He knew it!  He had just told his disciples:  “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death and will turn him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified.  On the third day he will be raised to life!” (Matt. 20:18-19).

As He rode into Jerusalem on Palm Sunday, Jesus knew where that road was going to take Him.  He knew the work He had to do.  But He wasn’t going to quit.  He was determined to finish what He started.  He had always been.  Earlier in his ministry, He said, “’My food,’ said Jesus, ‘is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.” (Jn.4:34).   Jesus ate, drank, slept, lived, and breathed the special work assigned to him by his heavenly Father.

And what work was that?  Before He was born on this earth, the Father used angels to announce the critical mission that Jesus, God’s Son, alone could do.  The angel told Joseph, “Mary will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because He will save his people from their sins.” (Mt.1:21).  Jesus was sent to our earth to do one thing – save.  And Jesus never lost sight of that mission.  He reminded his parents when he was twelve: “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” (Lk.2:49).  That devotion didn’t change as He began his ministry.  He said after rescuing Zaccheus: “The Son of Man came to seek and save what was lost.” (Lk.19:10).  This is what Jesus was always doing.  Reaching out to lost souls.  Determined to save them.  Determined to save you and me.  And He would not quit until that was done.

He didn’t chicken out in the end, even though He knew the price involved in rescuing lost sinners like us.  As Good Friday drew nearer, He often told his disciples exactly what would happen: “We are going up to Jerusalem, and the Son of Man will be betrayed to the chief priests and the teachers of the law.  They will condemn him to death.” (Mt.20:18).  And so, into Jerusalem Jesus rode on that donkey.  Knowing full well what was about to happen.  But determined to get to that cross and finish the job.  Jesus didn’t come here just to live a good life as an example for us.  He didn’t just come here to teach us how to live.  He came here to sacrifice his holy, innocent life for you and me.  To pay what we owe.  To finish that work.

Ever seen Braveheart?  In this movie, William Wallace, a Scottish Commoner, played by Mel Gibson, attempts to unite the feuding clans of Scotland in their fight against England in the 13^th century.  He attempts to elicit the help of Robert the Bruce, the leader of the most powerful clan.  Bruce refuses to help, and in soliloquy, he says: “Wallace is an uncompromising man.  Uncompromising men are admirable.  But only a compromising man can be king.”

Wrong!  Look at the King riding into Jerusalem on that donkey.  On Palm Sunday, an uncompromising man became the King of all history.  The King of kings!  Jesus did not, would not compromise.  All the way into Jerusalem.  All the way to the cross.  All the way until Jesus was able to speak that word of accomplishment.  It Is Finished!  “Can you imagine the cry from the cross?  The sky is dark.  The other two victims are moaning.  The jeering mouths are silent.  Perhaps there is weeping.  Perhaps there is silence.  [Jesus just had his lips wet with wine vinegar.]  Then Jesus draws in a deep breath, pushes his feet down on that Roman nail, and cries, “It is finished!”

What was finished?  The history-long plan of redeeming man was finished.  The message of God to man was finished.  The works done by Jesus as a man on earth were finished.  The task of selecting and training ambassadors was finished.  The job was finished.  The song had been sung.  The blood had been poured.  The sacrifice had been made. The sting of death had been removed.  [Our sins were forgotten about.  Our guilt was gone.  Our slavery to sin and death was finished.]  It was over.” (Lucado, No Wonder…p.39).

A word of accomplishment.  A word of triumph.  A word of relief.  For Jesus.  And for us.  Jesus’ redeeming work is done.  In English, we say it in three words: It is finished. In Greek, Jesus spoke one.  Tetelestai.  Finished.  It conveys the idea of finishing a job, completing a race.  But tetelestai also means “Paid in full.” 

How many of you have a mortgage on your house?  How many of you are making payments on a car?  How many are still paying off student loans?  Or have credit cards that are in hoc up to your armpits?  Well, I imagine you look forward to the day when that letter comes in the mail from your loaning agency, that has a form on which is stamped: “Paid in full.”  Time to celebrate, right?  Tetelestai!  That Greek word Jesus spoke from the cross was commonly used in business.  It was used on legal documents.  In the form of a stamp.  It meant: “Paid in full.”

So when Jesus said, “Paid in full,” He was telling the world that all sins of all time were paid in full.  Your sins, my friends, have been paid in full!  At great cost to Jesus!  But no cost to you!  Hard to believe, isn’t it?  Well, that day, the apostle John was standing at the foot of the cross watching this.  He saw what happened that day.  And He listened to Jesus’ word of accomplishment.  And later, with the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, he wrote: “If anybody does sin, we have the one who speaks to the Father in our defense – Jesus Christ, the Righteous One.  He is the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and not only for ours but also for the sins of the whole world.” (1 Jn.2:1-2)  Paid in full!  John knew what that meant.  That’s why he explained: “The blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.” (1 Jn.1:7).  Every last one.  Every last sin.

The ones I forget?  Yes.  David confessed, “Forgive my hidden faults.” (Ps.19:12).  The dumb ones?  Yes.  Aren’t all our sins dumb anyway?  We are like sheep.  Sheep are dumb.  Jesus was pierced for the transgressions and crushed for the iniquities of sheep that loved to wander. (Is.53:5-6).  The stubborn ones?  That’s right!  The sins I am so ashamed of I find it hard to admit them?  Yes, those too.  How about the Big ones?  The filthy and disgusting sins?  Robbery?  Murder?  Rape?  Terrorism?  Yes, even those are included in the sins of the whole world.  How about our sins of not finishing things we started?  Yes!  All are paid in full!  Any sin, by anybody, in any place, at any time – Jesus paid for all in full!  See why He suffered so?

Don’t try to take back some of that suffering on yourself.  Don’t think there is a sin or two that you have to pay for.  If you went out to dinner with a bunch of friends, and when the bill for the dinner arrived, they picked up the tab, wouldn’t you be a fool if you insisted on paying for it, too?  Don’t be a spiritual fool.  Jesus paid in full for you and for me.  He paid a price that all the silver and gold and all our sin-tarnished works could never pay.  It is finished!  Rejoice in the most important word ever spoken:  Tetelestai!  For you and me, it means the difference between heaven and hell.

“It is finished!” Jesus cried.  And the Son of God went home.  His mission was finished.  But you know Jesus… He’s never resting… Word has it that his tireless hands are preparing a place so glorious that it even gives the angels goose bumps!  He is now working on that for you and me.  Considering what He has accomplished so far, that is one creation I plan to see!  Amen.

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