The Cross - Jesus' hour of glorification

(Written July 29, 2012)

A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips. When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

 - John 19:29-30

"It is finished." The finality. The end of all sacrifice, of all of blood shed for forgiveness of sins. FINALLY, God had satisfied Himself with the death of His chosen, anointed Innocent One.

"It is finished." It was not a mere era ending; it was much more than that. A highway now lies between mankind and God, where for many thousands of years before there was just a huge chasm that could not be bridged. It was not the dawn of merely a new age; it was the dawn of a NEW MAN!

I find it absolutely amazing that Jesus had this perspective at the time He died. This cry was uttered at the doorstep of death. What was finished? His God-appointed task of substitution for mankind's penalty. It's amazing how little the people around the Cross that day might have known about what had been accomplished that moment.

Misunderstood, betrayed, His body a river of blood, hanging cursed and an outcast, a common criminal outside the city gates, Jesus still had His perspective so clearly before Him at the doorstep of death.

John has been talking about the "hour of glorification" of the Son of Man; at the moment Jesus died, that hour was finished. Jesus had been perfectly glorified.

The perfect glorification of our God is not in His majesty, or in any of His attributes, or even the mystery of the Incarnation, or Jesus' teachings, or miracles, or even His life. The perfect glorification of our God is HIS DEATH ON THE CROSS. 

How can we glory in this grisly symbol of murder? How is God glorified in Jesus' death? This, I believe, is where Christianity is unique. It is our belief that God chose the moment, the darkest hour, to win an irreversible victory. That which the world considers the most foolish thing - the Cross of Jesus - THAT is our greatest glory.

God indeed SHAMED the wisdom of the world, and frustrated the understanding of the "wise".....through the Cross. He silenced human wisdom for all time.

I want to dwell on the defeat that the kingdom of darkness endured at the moment Jesus cried out "It is finished." No longer could there be any hope of victory. Cosmic powers had been stripped of their power and the strength of their delusions. They were led captive in the train of the Victor, publicly shamed, disgraced, rendered powerless.

All that remained to the kingdom of darkness was the power of bluff - a bark far worse than its bite. There is no bite left, actually.

Let's call this power of bluff of the kingdom of darkness. It has no place anymore in the lives of us who believe in the substitutionary death of the Son of God for us.