I’m finished. I know that is a dangerous thing to say. Some one might applaud, thinking I’m preaching a two word sentence. One of my closer friends in the church pointed out that I’ve been a little long winded of late. He times sermons. There was a family disagreement about the length of last night’s sermon. One said, “Too long.” The other said, “Just right.” Did you know that preacher’s families are like this?  Do you think you were the only ones to critique the sermon on the way home from church?

           I’m finished. That might sound good to some of you. Finally, a short sermon! Don’t get too excited. I’m not finished preaching this sermon, but I am, finished writing Lenten sermons for 2007. On a week when you write three sermons, that’s an accomplishment. When the last word is typed, I say to myself, I did it. My work is done.  I’m finished.  Of course, as Yogi Berra likes to say, “It’s not over until it’s over.” There is still work to do.

          We are nearly finished with Lent. By the time the service is over, we are finished with our services. Some churches have a Lenten service on Holy Saturday; called the Easter vigil. The traditional vigil begins in darkness and starts with words like these: Brothers and sisters in Christ, on this most holy night, in which our Lord Jesus Christ passed over from death to life, the Church invites her members, dispersed throughout the world, to gather in vigil and prayer.[i]

          In these services as the vigil proceeds and Easter nears, more and more candles light the sanctuary, symbolizing the light that shatters the darkness of death. Some communities baptize at the stroke of midnight when Easter arrives.

          We don’t have an Easter vigil. When we finish this service, we are finished with Lenten services for 2007. When we finish, we are finished.  I guess this makes Yogi right again. “It’s not over until it’s over.”

          When it came to crucifixion, everyone believed that once you were crucified, you were finished. It didn’t matter when you drew your last breath. They knew that to get the cross, you were a goner. Cancer used to be that way. When I was a young child, when someone got cancer, it was over. Now, with the advances of modern medicine, it’s not over until it’s over. When Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified, everyone believed Jesus was finished.  It was finished because crucifixion was a very public event. While our executions are private and painless, there was no attempt to make crucifixion a private experience. They wanted it public and they wanted it to be excruciatingly painful.  The Roman government considered crucifixion a deterrent. It was reserved for the lower class, particularly those accused of robbery or in particular rebellion.

          "Tradition tells us that around the time that Jesus was a teenager, there was a rebellion near where he lived. The Roman army crushed the rebellion but they didn't want it to happen again, so they crucified an Israelite every 10 meters along a road for the distance of 16 kilometers. The sight of some 1,760 people, dead or dying in agony, on crosses spaced every 30 feet for ten miles must have made an indelible impression on the mind of a teenager."[ii]

          The Roman statesman Seneca witnessed many crucifixions and wrote about the different types.  Some were crucified upside down, he said, while others were impaled through their private parts. Some were nailed to their crosses while others were tied. Josephus, a first century historian, called it "the most wretched of deaths." So when even before you were finished, you were finish. Everyone knew that if you got the cross, you were finished even before they raised you up on your cross.

          We believe Jesus died right side up. That’s how you see him pictured on the cross.  All four gospels agree that there was a sign above his head which read, “King of the Jews.” This being the case, being crucified right side up, Jesus likely suffocated as his body slowly collapsed on his lungs. It was a slow, painful way to die.

          Even though the Roman soldiers are often depicted as sadistic and cruel, there is reason to believe that crucifixion was so torturous that they wanted it finished, quickly. They wanted it over. Often they would break the legs of those crucified head up to speed the process of suffocation. They also allowed the women of Jerusalem to mix a narcotic with wine and administer it with a sponge on the end of a stick. It was to numb the pain but some believe, depending on the dosage in the narcotic, it may have speeded up the process of suffocation. Crucifixion was so horrible, even to the soldiers wanted it finished. Jesus refused the narcotic so it wasn’t over till it was over.      

          It appears that the movement is finished. I’m sure many of his followers believe this.  Jesus had presented a radical new way of living within Judaism. It was a movement which valued women, the poor, the sick, the hungry, the imprisoned. It sought religious equality based on Jesus new understanding of scripture. But his followers thought it was finished.  The gospels depict a pathetic scene at the cross. Mark says it was Mary Magdalene, Mary the mother of James, Joses, Salome and other women, who had followed him all of the way from Galilee. Luke is the only gospel to allow for a possibility that any of the disciples were there with the phrase “his acquaintances.”

          In a story telling tradition that goes out of its way to name the disciples who follow Jesus and identity how they interact with the teacher, it seems unlikely that any of his disciples witnesses the scene. They thought it was finished. But we know it’s not over until it’s over.

          I’m sure the religious system which created such oppression believed it was finished. They were done with Jesus. He opposed their prejudicial system of the clean and the unclean. He challenged their assumption that the human heart can only get right with God by sacrificing a lamb or a goat or calf or a turtle dove. As Jesus is nailed on the cross, they go back to business as usual. It is the Passover so there are two bloody scenes going on in Jerusalem on this day.  There is the blood of the Lamb spilled at Calvary and there is the bloody parade of lambs in the Temple. Throughout the day as Jesus dies, the priests would have been slaughtering the Passover lambs, catching the blood and pouring it on the altar. Outside, the Temple, the sacrificial lambs were skinned, prepared for the Passover meal in accordance to the Law of Moses. The Levites sang the Psalms. These powerful, religious leaders believed that were doing God’s will and they believed they were finished. Finished with Jesus questioning their ways; finished with possible change.

          They thought it was finished. But we know it’s not over until it is over.

          The Roman authorities thought it was finished. They had given the people what they wanted. Each Passover, the Roman garrison was fortified in order to keep the peace. They were worried about revolt. Pilate ceremoniously released a prisoner to appease the crowd of pilgrims. Barabbas was released; Jesus was crucified. Any hint of rebellion put down. They thought it was finished. But we know it’s not over until it’s over.   I have been attending Good Friday vigil services since I was a child. I have two distinct memories which date to sometime in elementary school. I am old enough to remember when everything closed from noon and the churches and the churches were half full for three hours.  I say half full because my first of these early memories about Good Friday is my mother complaining about attendance being down. She thought that if the schools and business closed for Good Friday service, you were required to attend. “The churches used to be full.” Even though I know my mother went to the vigil out of her spiritual discipline, she made it sound as if it was a professional obligation.  Perhaps this way of thinking has led to the demise of Good Friday vigil. Few churches offer the three hour watch and while attendance was up this year, we can’t see we were full or even half full. Mother went out of devotion; others out of professional obligation. I went, because I had too.

          Imagine a seven or eight year old boy, sitting for two and one half hours, in a hot, un-air conditioned sanctuary. Imagine the joy that boy experienced, imagine the joy I experienced when the preacher read John 19:30, “When Jesus had received the wine, he said, "It is finished.”  It was all I could do not to shout, Yeah!  Imagine then the disappointment when I learned that it wasn’t over. “It’s finished” is the sixth of seven words on Good Friday. Even though Jesus says “It’s finished” it’s not the last word.

          Ever human involved at the time of Jesus death on a cross believe that it was finished. The followers of Jesus, the religious authorities, the Roman government, even Jesus thought, "It’s finished."  They all agreed and they were all wrong. They learned that when it comes to finishing, God is in charge. God is the finisher. We aren’t. What seems to us to be finale is just a beginning.

          Many years ago, Paul Tillich wrote of an experience fresh in his consciousness, the Nuremberg War Crimes Trials. One of the witnesses had escaped a death camp and the gas chamber. This witness survived by living for a time in an open grave in a Jewish cemetery in Wilna, Poland. While he was there, he saw a young woman give birth to a child in a nearby grave. In her delivery she was assisted by an eighty-year old grave digger. When the baby uttered its first cry, the old man prayed, “Great God, hast thou finally sent us the Messiah? For who but the Messiah could be born in a grave?” Who indeed? Who but God the finisher can turn a grave into a new beginning?

          Good Friday gives me hope that when I think I’m finished, I’m not. It should give you the same assurance. When we think the cause of Jesus is floundering in the world, that living for Christ seems finished, it’s not over until it’s over

          When we are concerned about the church being rigid and so devoid of the capacity to change that it’s finished, it’s not over until it’s over.

          When we feel our world is threatened by poorly led governments and wide-eyed terrorists, when we believe freedom may almost be finished, it's not over until it’s over.  But more than anything, when you think your relationship with God is so fractured by sin that you are beyond redemption, when you think, “I’m finished,” you are not. It’s not over until it's over, until God the finisher is done.

          I guess that means I can’t say I’m finished. I guess I’ll say my Lenten work is done. It’s time as it will soon be dark on this Good Friday.  It was dark by the time they got him down and found a place to lay him. It was the Sabbath, his turn to rest in a borrowed grave. You aren’t finished crucified Savior. Your Lenten work is simply done. Rest well. God is about to turn your grave into a new beginning.

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