It Is Finished

The night God rescued Israel from slavery in Egypt, He commanded that, every year, every family was to sacrifice a lamb on Passover.

Thousands of families sacrificed thousands of lambs that day.

Jesus celebrated Passover with His disciples the night before He was crucified. The lamb they ate that night was part of the family sacrifice.

The next day, there was one sacrifice made in the Temple in the morning and one sacrifice made in the afternoon on behalf of all of Israel. In other words, it was a national sacrifice.

The first sacrifice was made at nine in the morning. When that lamb had been slaughtered, a priest would blow the shofar, a trumpet of sorts, fashioned out of a ram’s horn.

It was nine o’clock in the morning when they crucified him. (Mark 15:25, NLT)

I wonder if Jesus could hear the shofar blowing from the Temple as the Roman soldiers pounded the nails into His wrists. I wonder if, just for a moment, all of the people passing by quieted at the sound announcing that the sacrifice had been made.

The second sacrifice was made at three in the afternoon.

Darkness fell across the whole land until three o’clock. The light from the sun was gone. And suddenly, the curtain in the sanctuary of the Temple was torn down the middle. Then Jesus shouted, “Father, I entrust my spirit into your hands!” And with those words he breathed his last. (Luke 23:44-46, NLT)

As the shofar blew for a second time that day, again announcing that the sacrifice had been made, Jesus drank the last drop from the Cup of God’s Wrath. The perfect, eternal sacrifice had been made.

“It is finished!” (John 19:30, NLT)

Jesus, on the cross, did what no lamb could ever do.

As the perfect man, He is the perfect substitute.

As the eternal God, He is the eternal sacrifice.

And when sins have been forgiven, there is no need to offer any more sacrifices. (Hebrews 10:18, NLT)

Jesus is the Lamb sacrificed once and for all.

And so, it is finished.

Read Hebrews 10:11-18 and reflect on how the old covenant foreshadowed the new covenant that Jesus initiated.