St. Luke Ev. Lutheran Church of Watertown-WELS
Sermon delivered by Pastor Anthony E. Schultz
Lenten Vespers #6. April 5, 2006 John 19:30

When he had received the drink, Jesus said, “It is finished.” With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

This is God’s Word!

People of God—rescued from the flaming lake of fire in hell by the innocent blood of the very Lamb of God:

Finished! I started reading that book about the lady—married to a doctor—with a couple of children—who felt like a gnat—buzzing around the ear of her family—basically insignificant and unimportant. According to the paperback book cover—she is just going to go walking along the beach—and keep on walking—walking away—into oblivion—never coming back! I’m on page 56. There are 350 to go. I also started a murder mystery—about another lady—a little grandma—who disappeared. She didn’t run away. She just made Jell-O—red with bananas on the bottom and little white marshmallows on the top! I read the first three chapters of that book. Last fall I started working on the lawn—digging up those patches of some kind of like crab grass or quack grass—that the lawn service juice doesn’t kill. I dug up about a dozen patches about the size of dinner plates—put down some potting spoil and a fist full of grass seeds. And they grew a little bit before the cold of the winter. I got most of the front yard—by my office window—but beside the house—and the back yard—aren’t even started! Do you have stuff like that? I started cleaning the garage. I have the orange extension cords all wrapped up and hung up. I have little drawers full of different kinds of screws and anchors. I have the power tools on shelves. But there are a whole bunch of hand tools that are not put away. I have boxes of photographs from years and years ago—from trips all over the place—in boxes big enough to hold 10 reams of paper. I started organizing those, too! Putting them in albums with captions and names. But that’s not finished either. Do you have stuff like that? Big projects and little ones—all started—part way done—but far from finished? I don’t know what happens when you die—and you leave all those unfinished projects still unfinished? Does somebody else finish them for you? Or do they dig through your stuff—and just throw it in trash bags and pitch it into a dumpster? It’s all very frustrating and not a little scary!

The most important project every begun—was God’s plan to rescue us from our sins. It started over 6,000 years ago—even before God created the Heavens and the earth. With painstaking attention to detail God worked on that plan—until—about 2,000 years ago—on a Friday afternoon when the sun stopped shining—Jesus died to save us. Today we hear:

Jesus Speaks A Word of Accomplishment

1. He finished all he came to do
2. He paid all we owed.

Jesus came to give up his life—to take away our sins. In John chapter 10—the Good Shepherd chapter—Jesus said, ”I am the good shepherd; I know my sheep and my sheep know me—just as the Father knows me and I know the Father—and I lay down my life for the sheep. I have other sheep that are not of this sheep pen. I must bring them also. They too will listen to my voice, and there shall be one flock and one shepherd. The reason my Father loves me is that I lay down my life—only to take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have authority to lay it down and authority to take it up again. This command I received from my Father.” John 10:14-18 How tragic that once again this Spring people are publishing a book claiming Jesus didn’t really die—but survived his crucifixion—only to live in France—with an earthly family—a social revolutionary and example of love and kindness? Jesus is who he claimed to be—the literally Son of God—the literal Savior of the world—the only Way to Heaven and eternal life! Let there be no doubt or wavering!

Jesus said, “It is finished!” All our sins paid for! How many sins do you do? Do you have any idea? I heard on the radio—on opening day for the Brewers—that Robin Yount—who was a very good baseball player--made 44 errors his second year. 44 mistakes! That’s 44 times when a grounder came by him—hard and fast—and he put his glove down—and it went right past him! 44 times—when he grabbed the baseball—and started to throw it—oops! He didn’t quite have a hold of it—and started to throw it anyway—and it just sort of dropped about 4 feet in front of him. 44 times—when he threw the ball—about 100 mph about 4 feet over the head of the person he was trying to throw it to. Imagine if somebody watched you—all the time—and when you made a mistake—a genuine blunder—an obvious painful hurtful wrong. And this huge “E” would appear on your score board—and it was announced—you have been charged with an error! How many errors do you make in a day? How many mornings does the alarm go off—and instead of saying to yourself—This is the day the LORD has made—I will rejoice and be glad in it—you grumbled and complained? This is not to mention how many times you have spilled OJ, spilled milk, spilled cereal—burned your hand because the microwave made your coffee cup too hot! These are not great moral lapses—but they are mistakes, aren’t they? How many pieces of toast have your burned—then dumped into the sink where they got all soggy and gross—until somebody else ran the garbage disposal? If you live to be 75 years old—65 plus 10 years—average retirement—that would be 27,375 days. 27,375 days—with 3 sins a day—one sin every morning—one sin every afternoon—one sin every evening that would be in the neighborhood of 82,125 sins. 82,000 sins! That’s a lot of mistakes! Think about it! All the times husbands say something mean and hurtful because they think their wife is not as physically beautiful as a Sports Illustrated swimsuit model! All the times wives have treated their husbands as failures—because they can’t go to the mall and buy expensive dresses with matching shoes and matching purse and expensive treatments at the spa. All the times we have stolen wages—by getting paid for not working very hard or very faithfully. For all those sins—times the 6 billion people alive on the planet today—Jesus said, “It is finished!”

It is finished!” Jesus died to save us—because the wages of sin is death! Imagine a NASCAR driver just practicing—whizzing around the track about 200 mph. A car ahead of him—goes a little too close to the wall—scrapes it—then begins to slide the long way down the track. I didn’t know this—but apparently—when there is a crash—an accident of any kind—they hit this warning system—that makes these yellow lights go on—in the dashboard of all the cars on the track. This would be a powerful warning—look out! Then—professional drivers—you would know to hit the brakes—wondrous specially engineered brakes—a little more sophisticated than the brakes on my little Chrysler Cirrus! In moments you are going much slower than 200. But you have to step on the brakes. If you don’t—you could end up crashing—clipping part of that disabled car. And there you go—end over end—your breakable body fatally broken. They have equipment in race cars—like in airplanes—that keeps track of when you step on the gas and when you step on the brakes. Why didn’t he hit the brakes until it was way—way too late? We will never know! What a tragic mistake! It is only by God’s grace that the mistakes we make don’t cost us our life—day after day. The times we are going down the road to Madison or Milwaukee—the cruise control set at 75+ mph—our eyes on the road—our mind someplace else! It is only by God’s grace that he gives us a time of grace—day after day—his mercy fresh and new every morning—like the dew on our front lawn. As we live in what must be the end times—we cannot afford to waste a single day—a single hour—a single moment—arguing or worrying about what has no lasting worth! Instead let us repent—be sad and painfully sorry for all our sins. Then we will rejoice in Jesus’ unconditional love!

Jesus said, “It is finished!” All the sins of the whole wide world washed away. Because Jesus has forgiven me—I will forgive the people who sin against me. I was at Eastside Lutheran Grade School in Madison the other day. When you leave the Church—you come to the bottom of the hill by the freeway—you have to turn right. It’s one way. There is one of those median things in the way—so you can’t go all the way across and turn left. I realized that when I got to the bottom of the hill—I have to turn right. By then a gentleman was at the bottom of the hill, too. He must have been somebody who had been there before—because he was way over to the side—ready to turn right. But before he did—he gave me one of those—“Hey! You must be a big stupid head!”, looks—then turned right! Really? Because I was right in the middle of the lane I was supposed to be in? I’m a blockhead? Why do people do that? Why do telemarketers call during lunch—and when you tell them right away that you aren’t interested—why do they act all offended and say something genuinely hurtful—then hang up on you? Why? Because we are sinful people living in a sinful world. When people say and do things that are mean to us—we need to forgive them—from the heart—the same way Jesus forgives us!

Jesus said, “It is finished!” With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Jesus died to pay for the sins of the whole wide world! One of Nancy’s God-children is a surgical nurse. Last week she went to Limbe! Do you know where that is? Limbe is a city in Haiti—one of the absolute poorest nations in the whole world. Our God-child Becky went down to Haiti with surgeons and anesthetists to help the poorest people who needed operations. They did 67 operations in 4 ½ days. They helped 67 people—working as hard and as fast as they could—in a place where they haven’t had doctors and nurses—much less surgeonsfor 2 years +. They worked as hard as they could as fast as they could to fix eyes, ears, noses, throats, lungs and kidneys, tummies and intestines—arms and legs—fingers and toes as best they could. They sutured incisions—they would not be there to snip and slip out. They left behind bottles of antibiotics with strict instructions to take these capsules until they are all gone. Don’t forget! They left—while many of those patients were far from fully recovered. They had to! They did the best they could—with the time they had—under the circumstances. They would not and could not say it is finished. Jesus did—because the work of saving us from our sins was entirely and completely finished. There was nothing—absolutely nothing—that remained to be done!

Jesus said, “It is finished!” With that he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. I read the other day--about Craig Biggio. Do you know who Craig Biggio is? He’s the player for the Astros—who has been hit by more pitches than any one else in professional baseball. He has been hit 273 times. Can you imagine that? Going on 300 times he has been clobbered by a pitch—often times going on 100 mph—the baseball hits him in the head—the shoulder—the hands—his knee—his thigh. Ouch! That’s got to hurt! What do you do—when pitchers smack you upside the head—sticking a baseball in your ear? Do you throw your bat at them? Do you pretend you are limping to first—then suddenly and without warning—turn hard left and grab the pitcher around the neck and try to throw them to the ground? Or do you forgive them—and jog down to first base? If we lash out—strike back—eye for eye and tooth for tooth—how are we different from unbelievers? It is only the Lord Jesus—who said, “It is finished!” who can make us strong to love and forgive—even as he always loves and always forgives us! Live in the light of that forgiving love! Amen! To God alone all glory! Rev. Anthony E. Schultz