We’ve been waiting for this for eighteen chapters. At first it wasn’t His hour (John 2:4; 7:30; 8:20), then His hour was at hand (12:23, 27; 13:1; 17:1), and now it is the hour. This is the hour of glory, the hour when John saw His glory that was full of grace and truth (John 1:14). He was going back to the glory that He had with the Father before the beginning of the world (John 17:5). He will come again in glory. But the heaviest brightness of Jesus’ glory during His first coming was being lifted up on the cross to die.

How different is this from the glory of earthly Pharaohs and Kings and Caesars and Presidents? How different is His victory than all the triumphs of Persian armies and American forces? Jesus wins differently. He conquers like a seed.

When Andrew and Philip went to Jesus and told Him that some Greeks wanted to see Him,

Jesus answered them, “The hour has come for the Son of Man to be glorified. Truly, truly, I say to you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. (John 12:23–24, ESV)

We will see His glory in the passage for this morning. We will see the seed buried. We will see the lamb of God taking away the sin of the world. We will see the accomplishment of Christ’s earthly ministry. He said all along that He was only doing His Father’s will, much of which was written down beforehand in the Old Testament. The whole world has never be the same since.

Not only does this paragraph provide the historical details of His death, the point of this paragraph is that Jesus declares that His death accomplishes His entire mission.

An Announcement of Accomplishment (verses 28-30)

Not counting the resurrection (which we’re not supposed to know about until the next chapter), Jesus had done everything He came to do. He had only to declare His victory.

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. (John 19:28–30, ESV)

Three times in three verses a form of of the related words “finished” or “fulfilled” is used (compared to only additional six uses in the rest of John, Borchert). The repetition underlines that the last pieces are in place. Jesus completes His mission here on the cross, knowing that all was finished, Jesus said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst”.

Jesus’ thirst functions on at least three levels: personal, prophetic, and practical. On the personal level, He was thirsty. He probably hadn’t had anything to drink since the previous night’s dinner with His disciples. His prayer in Gethsemane, arrest, trials, flogging, and crucifixion saw Him without sleep and without food or water. He had fatigue, pain, heat, hunger, and thirst. Prophetically, the sour wine that the soldiers would give Him fulfills the poetry of David in Psalm 69:21 (which ends in triumphant worship, as I read in the call to worship this morning). And practically, “[M]y strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws” (Psalms 22:15, ESV). This small drink would wet His mouth and throat enough for Him to make an important announcement in verse 30.

A jar full of sour wine stood there. This word for wine is ὄξος (oxsos), a cheap vinegar wine available to soldiers, “a favorite beverage of the lower ranks of society” (BDAG). It wasn’t tasty but it was fermented; it did what wine was supposed to do. The soldiers put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. A hyssop branch was short and flimsy but Jesus’ mouth was only a few feet above their heads.

When Jesus had received the sour wine He was ready to cry out with a loud voice as the other three Gospel writers record (Matthew 27:50; Mark 15:37; Luke 23:46). He said, “It is finished.” We can thank William Tyndale for first giving us this momentous English translation (The earlier Wycliffe English translation: “It is endid” doesn’t have quite the same ring to it). Knowing what we know now, everything is in this announcement. The Greek word, Τετέλεσται (tetelestai), doesn’t merely mean the end, it means the finish of a project, the completion of the course, the fulfillment of an entire operation, the realization of one’s purpose.

But what is finished? There is more than one answer again on a few different levels. On the immediate level, He finished His sufferings. His death meant the end of His pain. The torture, the open wounds, the breathing difficulties, were all over.

More broadly, His earthly ministry was finished. He said a similar thing at the beginning of His prayer in John 17: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work you gave me to do” (verse 4). He loved His own to the end (John 13:1). He obeyed His Father at every step (for example, John 4:34). He lived without sin and He made the ultimate sacrifice for His sheep (John 10:11, 15). He would be back with His Father within minutes. His being misunderstood and mocked and beaten by men, let alone separated from His Father, was done.

Even more, the Messianic prophecies of the suffering servant were finished. Psalm 69, and two more that immediately followed His final breath (which we’ll see in John 19:36-37), could be considered as good as completed at this point.

All of these levels are finished, true, but that’s not quite enough. What was the end of His sufferings, the accomplishment of His earthly ministry, the fulfillment of Messianic prophecies? What is finished is atonement for sin! He has finished paying the penalty for every sinner who would ever believe. He has finished making propitiation; He has satisfied God’s righteous wrath against ungodliness and unrighteousness. This is far beyond only the physical anguish He endured. He bore the divine punishment and purchased our eternal redemption. He is done demonstrating the righteousness of God both in the just pain and the just pardoning (Romans 3:25-26).

Remember how John put it in chapter one? “Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29) He took it! Sin—its power, its sting, its sentence—is taken.

Do not all of you who believe want to stand and preach right now? Do you not want a little sour wine to whet your tongue in order to cry out with a loud voice, “It is finished!“? We didn’t finish making a sacrifice but it is a sacrifice made for us. It is finished. Of all the sins you committed last week, which one wasn’t covered? There can’t be any; it is finished. Of those sin(s) committed against you last week by a fellow believer, which one(s) need you to hold onto it longer? There shouldn’t be any; it is finished.

You feel unworthy of His love because the Spirit has been convicting you about your sin. You are unworthy. But the same Spirit points you to the Son and the Son says, “It is finished.” The Spirit isn’t convicting you so that you’ll pay for your sin with sorrow. You cannot pay for your sin with sadness any more than you could pay with gold. It is finished. In your poorness of spirit preach to your spirit what Jesus announced.

When I started writing this sermon I had every intention of finishing chapter 19. I am eager to get to chapter 20 because Jesus is alive again (another story spoiler, I know). But Jesus’ seed produces fruit. This is really good news.

Maybe you’ve got a home-improvement project, and maybe it’s literally lineal feet from being completed (before you tackle the next project). That isn’t finished, but the penalty for every sin you committed while working and the purchase of your sanctification for the rest of the project is another story. It is finished. Maybe you’ve got kids under your roof, or maybe they live under their own roof now with kids of their own. They aren’t done, fully equipped for every good work, not yet. But everything you need to help them pertaining to life and godliness is yours because He bought it for you, including patience and joy and wisdom. Maybe you have high hopes for the United States to be the land of the free again. Maybe you pray for a great repentance revival to explode like fireworks on the Fourth. It may not look like you envision, but Jesus died to inherit His throne over all nations. It is finished.

Very few people saw the glory in that hour. Very few people see the glory when a seed goes dark and gets buried under the soil. But when the tree grows up and when the fruit plumps up to potential bursting on the branches, it doesn’t take long to remember that it all goes back to the death. Death brings life. It is finished.

The fruit of His glory continues to grow. We are not finished tasting the sweetness of His seed’s success. We are not finished watching the ripples swell and surge.

He bowed his head and gave up his spirit. The Synoptic writes say that He told the Father, “Into your hands I commit my spirit.” That is His final word, the last thing we’ll hear from Jesus until Sunday morning.

Conclusion

We are not mistaken or myopic to focus on Jesus or Jesus’ death. He is the Logos, the central reason in the universe. He is also the Lamb, the only redemption in the universe. Everything comes together in Him: science and salvation, the material and the invisible, all of time and whatever eternal time is like. Not anything that was made that He didn’t make; not anyone is saved that He doesn’t save.

Jesus is not simply relieved that His suffering was over. He wasn’t just glad to be done with it. And the apostle John isn’t just reporting an historical detail, though it did happen. Jesus announced the accomplishment of His work. John declares the theology. It is our work to announce the same accomplishment, to ourselves and to the world. Evangelism is saying: “It is finished.” They may ask, “What is finished?” There you go. Walk through that open door with all you know.

We must also preach to ourselves.

The main trouble in this whole matter of spiritual depression in a sense is this, that we allow our self to talk to us instead of talking to our self…The main art in the matter of spiritual living is to know how to handle yourself. You have to take yourself in hand, you have to address yourself, preach to yourself…you must go on to remind yourself of God, Who God is, and what God is and what God has done, and what God has pledged Himself to do. “Talk, Don’t Listen, to Yourself”

And we must die. So Jesus applied the point in John 12 immediately after the seed/fruit illustration.

Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life. If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him. (John 12:25–26, ESV)

It is the way of God’s glory. It is the way to life and fruit. Our dying has been purchased by His death. It is finished.