It is Finished

I've been thinking about how rarely these words are uttered --"It is finished"--and it be utterly true. How many things in this world can truly be finished and perfectly completed?

When I clean my house, there is always something else I could do to make it better. If I create a work of art, there is always one more detail that could be added. Ultimately, I could finish a book, but author probably only finished writing it because of a deadline he had. I'm sure every author that ever lived would look back over their work and find a detail they would change, a part they aren't quite satisfied with.

I finish a meal, but I just get hungry again. I get eight hours sleep, but I wear out by days end and have to do it all over again.

We go through life feeling unfinished, unsatisfied, not quite having arrived.

And we finish raising children, but would always go back to do something differently if we could. And our children somehow find the way to let their life unravel at those unfinished ends. (Though God gives more grace.) We finish a conversation and remember later something we forgot to mention. And we finish an argument and no one really wins. Treaties are signed and wars just start back up again. Convictions are handed down by a jury, but there's always an appeal. Declarations of innocence are handed down by juries, but the rumors and slander somehow survive this and outlast the trial.

I've heard about the importance of "closure". Someone dies and their life is over, but a mess is left behind, broken hearts, unfinished business, unsaid words. Someone feels wronged, and they long for the one who wronged them to "pay". But then revenge, if somehow exacted, leaves and empty bitter hole that consumes the one one who won the lawsuit or found some other way for the person to pay. Or maybe we feel guilty. When there is conflict, usually both sides can find evidence to convict the other. So we go in circles, rehearsing the offense, torturing oursrselves for our part in the matter.

Then it happened.... the perfect man died a perfectly horrible death at the perfect time, pouring out his perfect blood for perfect healing and perfect redemption. The perfect loophole was found to perfectly confound the accusations of the devil. He perfectly fixed the perfect mess Adam and Eve left us in. It was finally perfect. Nothing else ever accomplished could really be called finished. But he did it... so he said it... "It is fnished"