It is finished, followed by a deep sigh of relief, is the releasing, the exhaling sign that something big and magnificent has just happened. It is the fact of knowing that the end has arrived, that the deadline, the completion time has come to pass. The foreseen milestone has been reached, the task is completed, the dreamed accomplishment has been achieved. It is the same as saying “mission accomplished”. It is final. It is done.
“It is finished” were the final words pronounced by Jesus Christ on the cross at the end of His agony while He was about to fully commit His Spirit onto His Father in Heaven (John 19:30). At that crucial moment, He was totally at peace with God the Father, He has accomplished His mission on Earth, His job was done, humanity may now rest assured about its salvation, His blood shed has sealed our redemption once and for all, a new era has just begun, the tormenting of humanity by Satan is under strict control, and Satan’s influence in our lives is restricted solely to our mere allowance and cooperation. “We are more than conquerors through Him who loved us” (Romans 8:36-39).
It is finished because, finally, the world is going to be amazed, to confirm, to acknowledge, to be convinced that Jesus Christ was truly the Sent One, that He was ALL that He said He was, including being God: “Anyone who has seen me has seen the Father.” (John 14:6-14/Full Details). The disciples full of anguish, full of sadness, full of fear, full of confusion, full of anger, have now begun to understand the significance of His teaching. The words He spoke are being ruminated, brought back from memory, revised, assessed, weighed, dissected, appreciated, and treasured. Finally, everything has begun to make clearer sense. What at first was puzzling, blurry, confusing, misunderstood, finally has life , crisp meaning, sharp clarity, meaningful purpose and understanding.
When Jesus said, “My Father’s house has many rooms; I am going there to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2-4), He meant it dearly, and the disciples finally have begun to believe and to live with the hope of a better tomorrow with Him in Heaven. They also hung on to the assurance given to them by Jesus who declared: “But the Advocate, the Holy Spirit, whom the Father will send in my name, will teach you all things and will remind you of everything I have said to you.” (John 14:26). All the promises He made while He was alive were making more sense and were having more value to the disciples after He died, after He is gone.
The cruel death of Jesus Christ on the cross was a terrible sight for the disciples to bear and a devastating experience that would mark them for life and forever.
Usually, upon the completion of an arduous task, we take a break, a recess, time out to wind down, to breathe a little, to regain our strength, and to replenish our energy. In the case of Jesus’ disciples, it was time to regroup, to re-assess, to plan, to strategize. Our Rabbi is dead, our Teacher is gone: we got to mobilize, we got to take action and to do something.
When Jesus said “I will never leave you as orphans; I will come to you” (John 14:18), He also truly meant it. That is why, today, in our days, we can still hang on to His promise that is real because we also have the Holy Spirit to still be with us. And this is a comforting assurance, an encouraging fact to know that we are not alone, that we are not forgotten, that we are protected, that we have the choice and the opportunity to follow Him and to worship Him in the Spirit and in truth (John 4:24), that our faith in Him has the sustaining power to uphold us at all times, either while we are in the valley of our lives, or when all around us seems to be thick and opaque fog. And yet, we are able to move forward by faith, with full assurance and in the absolute confidence that we will make it no matter what, just because of who He is who is with us. He is Truth , His words are sure investments in our lives, and we can really count, trust and depend on them.
A paralyzed man named Mephibosheth, son of Jonathan, lame in both feet, was having a normal day of his life in the village where he was living when he heard that king David sent looking for him. This may have been a tremendous and a shocking news for him to process in his mind. Nevertheless, he was surprisingly designated to go to the palace, to sit and to eat at the king’s table every day, to receive all the land that belonged to his grandfather Saul, and to have several servants to work for him and to take care of his affairs (2 Samuel 9/Whole Chapter). All this favor came to his life suddenly, and he was fully restored to an elevated status by the amazing grace and by the mysterious plan of God. What an overwhelming experience it may have been for him!
A lost son, upon returning home, was accepted royally by his jubilant father who gave a feast in his honor for his decision to come back home. He was fully restored to his full son status in the family by his loving father. His mistake and his folly against his father were totally forgiven by his father. His rightful place in his home was kept preciously until his return and until his full reintegration. This is also known as the prodigal son story (Luke 15:11-32).
Whoever you are, wherever you are, King Jesus has come looking for you and is inviting you to come to have fellowship with Him. Your special place of honor is jealously reserved just for you and very specially for you and for you alone at the King’s table. You are a VIP, a Very Special Guest with the full “Son / Daughter” status. We are Royalty. We belong to a Royal Family. We have to accept Jesus' invitation by faith, to yield accommodatingly to the power of the Holy Spirit, to cooperate with His leading and His guidance, and to let the rest take its full course, the rest being our redemption and our salvation. We also have to renew and to shift our mind, and to change our thinking to a spiritual connotation in order for things to make better sense, to have a greater meaning, and in order to see and to accept things through their proper divine perspective.
As per the Parable of the Wandering Sheep in the Bible, a Shepherd would leave the ninety-nine sheep on the hills and would go looking for the “single one sheep” that wandered off. When he finds it, he is happier about that one sheep than about the other ones that stayed and did not wander off (Matthew 18:12-14).
This is a heartfelt reminder to you, the reader of this current paragraph, that you are that “very special single sheep, that very special single person” that Jesus Christ came to Earth and died for so that through His death and His resurrection, you may live forever and have “everlasting life” (John 3:16).
This is the main goal of our Lord Jesus Christ. He came down and died for every single one of us, and He wants to make sure that we all come home where we belong. We are His, He is ours. And we belong to the Great Family of God. Church is the place where the believers of Jesus Christ come together to have fellowship, to be refueled, to be updated, to be mentored, to be uplifted, to be strengthened, to be taught for their spiritual growth. Accepting Jesus Christ in your hearts by faith as your Redeemer and as your Savior is your starting point of your professed faith.
On the third day after His death, Jesus Christ has risen from the dead. He has conquered the grave and has demonstrated that His Omnipotence is real and indisputable. The work He came to do is now completed and is now sealed by His resurrection. He then went to meet with the disciples, restored His disciples’ faith, gave His final instructions, empowered them to go and make disciples (Matthew 28:16-20/The Great Commission). In return, the disciples full of zeal, full of life, full of power, full of assurance, full of faith are overwhelmingly motivated to do the work of God and to perform as it was expected of them, and as it was mandated to them. They were full of enthusiasm because they have seen the evidence of the piercing mark on His hands, of the piercing hole on His side. They were full of devotion and they began to share and to spread the Gospel of Jesus Christ to others without fear, without shame, without doubt, but with boldness, with passion and with conviction.
We also believe in Him, in the veracity and in the power of His resurrection. That is why we have taken the solemn initiative to write this blog in order to share the Great Love of Jesus Christ with all our Readers, to seriously manifest and to prove our commitment to all of you, and to reassure our willingness to reach out to non-Christians, to those who are asking, seeking and knocking, and also to backsliders, those who, for whatever reason, wandered away from the faith, from their fellow believers and from their creed.
He has risen (Matthew 28:6, 7) and His Mission on Earth is accomplished. As Jesus Christ’s Disciples, Our Mission towards you, our Fellow Humans, and towards you, our Blog Readers, has just begun. This is a New Beginning. All must know that Jesus said: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me" (John 14:6). All must also know that Jesus Christ is LOVE. He loves each and every one of us unconditionally without any discrimination, without any regards of geographical location, or of your actual faith position, or of your spiritual standing, or of your actual creed that you profess, and where you belong: He Loves Us All. He has opened His arms to accept you, to embrace you, to give you rest, to infuse you with His divine joy, to fill your hearts with contentment and with happiness. Officially, we all belong to Him. It is up to us now to make the switch, to move towards Him, to accept His Love. Just come to God now as you are, all of you who are asking, seeking and knocking (Matthew 7:7; Luke 11:9,10), all of you who are weary and burdened (Matthew 11:28), all of you who are wandering away (Matthew 18:12-14), and wandering around, and all of you who are ready and willing to repent and to turn your life around (Luke 15:4-7). Just come Home where you belong, and let a New Chapter of your life begin to unfold significantly to your surprising realization and to your joyful amazement. It is a Guarantee.
We suggest that you look for a Home Church, and that you connect to your Church Pastor who will mentor you, guide you, teach you, water baptize you, and put you on a new path towards your divine and heavenly destiny. We recommend that you go to a Church where the Death and the Resurrection of Jesus Christ are being preached, where the Word of God is the Fundamental, the Foundational and the Essential Teaching, where the Bible is the Final Authority, and also where Water Baptism by Immersion is administered. (Jesus Himself was water baptized by immersion by John the baptist; Matthew 3:13-17). Your rewarding, enriching and uplifting journey as a New Christian has just begun. Welcome Home!
We wish you a Happy Easter and a Happy Rejoicing in our Lord Jesus Christ.
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