"Crucifixion" – Duccio di Buoninsegna, 1308-1311
“It is finished.”
Jesus has finished his saving work on earth.
But the Book of Common Prayer in its wisdom reminds us that even though Jesus’ work here on earth is done and finished, God still has work to do.
God’s saving work has taken place, is still taking place and will continue to take place until the end of time. God’s saving work is ongoing.
God’s new creation, the new heaven and the new earth, is still not finished.
Only God can finish this work and bring that new creation into being. So tonight we’ll be praying that God will be deeply immersed in God’s work in specific areas, like the Church, the nations of the world, and this country in particular. We’ll be praying that God in God’s mercy will bring comfort and relief to all who suffer, and that God will open the hearts of those who have not received the Gospel to the truth.
God’s still unfinished work is the work that God gives us the privilege of sharing. As followers of Jesus here on earth today, and because we have been saved, we are the ones who get to help God work toward God’s new creation toward which all of history moves.
Now, even though we are saved, we are not yet completed or finished, any more than creation is finished or complete. God is still busy with us. The work that Jesus finished when he took his last breath on the cross is only the beginning of the good and saving work that God is doing and will continue to do in us.
So tonight, we will also pray for the grace of a holy life.
That one phrase, the grace of a holy life, sums up the life’s work of a Christian, in response to God’s saving gift to us. When we live holy lives, we help God to finish God’s work in us.
Our baptismal vows give shape and substance to what it means to live “a holy life.” To live a holy life is to strive to keep the vows that we made or that our parents made for us at our baptisms– to be active members of a Christian community, to persevere in resisting evil and to repent and to return to the Lord when we sin, to proclaim by word and example the Good News of God in Christ, and to seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving our neighbors as ourselves, and last of all, to strive for justice and peace among all people, and to respect the dignity of every human being.
As we try, with God’s help, to live holy lives, we get to be a part of God’s work of raising up the things that have been cast down, bringing new life to things that have grown old, and contributing in our small and imperfect ways to all things being brought to their perfection.
Tonight, as we gaze on the cross and remember its part in God’s plan of salvation, give thanks to God for the work that Jesus Christ finished in his time on earth when he drew his last breath.
Give thanks for the unfinished work that God has started in us.
And on this night, may our prayer be that with God’s grace, we, and all of creation, may at last be perfected and completed,
Finished– in and through God’s immeasurable, everlasting, and gracious love.
Amen.