The Seventh Station: The Cry of the Forsaken

"After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, 'I thirst!' Now a vessel of wine that had gone to vinegar was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with the sour wine, put it on a branch of hyssop, and put it to his mouth. And when he had received the sour wine, he said, 'It is finished!' And, bowing his head, he gave up his spirit."

Jeshua ben Joseph was born in Bethlehem under the reign of Herod the Great, during the rule of Augustus Caesar. He was raised in Nazareth along with His brothers and sisters, remaining there until about age thirty, when He became a rabbi. He gathered to Himself a number of friends and disciples, having a very successful mission among the small towns of Galilee, carrying on His work there for three years. Against the advice of His followers, He then decided to go to Jerusalem to continue His mission, and there confronted the religious and political leaders with His message. There He laid aside, for a moment, His work as teacher and miracle-worker, and showed Himself to the people as their Messiah. However, after causing a stir among the people, He seemingly discarded this role again, causing many to turn against Him. The government and religious leaders capitalized at once on the opportunity to have Him put to death, and so rid themselves of Him.

The story of Jesus, from beginning to end, sounds strangely like the making of a tragedy. A high and noble man, a success story in the making, a great religious teacher well-loved by the people, until a tragic flaw is found in Him. He is caught up in the Messianic aspirations of the people, made to play the part, made to become the embodiment of an unrealizable hope, and so is destroyed when that hope is confounded and crushed by the real powers of the world: the political and religious powers that stifle the human spirit and deny its aspirations. And, of course, the real tragedy is that He is never really understood in all this. His kingdom, He says, in not a worldly kingdom, but a kingdom of the spirit. He is destroyed, seemingly, by His great virtue - His high and noble spirit, His great vision. And so, from a success story in the making, His story turns to become one of high tragedy. And for those at the foot of the cross, all that remains now is the closing scene. "Finis." The story is told. "It is finished."

Perhaps the trail of Lent is about finished for us too. As we gaze about us, the roads to success, the roads to happiness we have chosen have become increasingly littered with bodies. Perhaps as we look toward the end of the road we can see the "Dead End" signs posted there. Our road is nearly all traveled. "It is finished." It leads to nowhere. And so the success, the happiness we craved begins to turn bitter in our mouth. We feel that life has betrayed us. The "Dead End" sign hangs like a millstone around our neck. Shakespeare’s words hit home:

Tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow, creeps in this petty pace from day to day to the last syllable of recorded time. And all our yesterdays have lighted fools the way to dusty death. Our - out brief candle. Life’s but a walking shadow: a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage, and then is heard no more. A tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury - signifying nothing.

Life mocks the living. Day after day, we are faced with a myriad of choices, decisions, things to get done, things that occupy our time - or do they steal it from us - and standing now, at the end of lent, near our own personal cross, we look back and it all seems so wasted, leading nowhere.

Good Friday appears to be the story of the final victory of despair over hope, of death over life in us also. For those of us who stand at the bottom of the cross faced with the meaninglessness of our own life, Jesus’ words, "It is finished," can be heard no other way than as a final capitulation. "It is finished." "It’s over. It’s done. Death has won." And the trembling earth seems to those of us who stand below the cross to be nothing else than Satan himself rising from the pits of hell to laugh at the high aspirations of man and of God. "It is finished." Hope is gone. Darkness rules.

Or does it? What is that cry? Is it the end of Jesus - or is it the completion of His task? Is it a sign of the end of life and the beginning of death and darkness, or is it the sign of the completion of life, and the end of death and darkness?

On Good Friday, what those who stand at the foot of the cross - what we, who stand struggling against the tide of sin and death, under our own cross, cannot guess, is that what we have heard uttered there is not the signal of defeat, but a cry of victory. One of the early church fathers said it well: "God reigns from a tree." This is not simply another death here. There is a power which confronts the powers of our world, a power which confronts sin and death - an inexplicable power that is released in this Man’s death. It is as if, as He dies, He reaches out and grasps sin and death by the throat, and with that cry of, "It is finished," they plunge with Him into the abyss. And we are left to marvel at this awesome spectacle.

"It is finished." The confrontation is over. The powers of darkness have met dead on with the power of an all-consuming love. All our evil has spent itself on the cross. Sin is met there as it tries to separate Father and Son - and it cannot. Death, too, spends itself on the One, "who was and is and is to come." As death drags Him down to hell, Jesus tears His life from the jaws of death, and gives it up to the protective hands of the Father. And even Satan, jeering at Him from the foot of the cross, daring Him to come down, at last is spent as Jesus reaches out in costly forgiveness, and offers Himself for the sake of those who have placed Him on the tree. The confrontation is over. God reigns from a tree. "It is finished." Darkness has been overcome by light. Despair is overcome with hope. Death shall be overcome with life.

Jesus had said not long before, "My Father is at work even until now, and so I am at work also." The Father created, then entered into His Sabbath rest. And now Jesus also, having drunk the cup of sour wine, the cup of suffering, after drinking it to the last drop, now tastes the wine of death and so completes His Father’s will. "It is finished." It is time to enter into His rest - and not only for Jesus, but also for you and I. His work is complete, and now He gives His Spirit to us, that He may be complete in us.

It is time for us to cast off the "Dead End" signs, time for us to cast off darkness and death, time to set down our cross, time to find our rest as well. When it appears that death is in control, when it appears that there is no way out, when we are tempted to despair or to capitulate to the forces of darkness in this world, Jesus calls us once again to the foot of the cross, to be reminded that, "God reigns from a tree." "It is finished." He is the victor even on the cross. May that work which He completed on the cross, also be completed in us.

Easier said than done. But it will, if we walk with Jesus.

"The saying is sure," Paul tells us. "If we die with Jesus, we will rise with him." So we want stay with him, stay with him all the way - all the way through Calvary.