There are three words in the English language that, when spoken together, can signify either the deepest joy and satisfaction or the deepest sorrow and despair. These words are: "It is finished." When they are used by graduating seniors, or marathon runners, or Presbyterian elders finishing out their last term -- you know it's a sign of joy and relief. When they are used by a senior who has failed his final exam or by a farmer looking at his crops after a devastating drought, or by a Saints fan watching them play the Vikings, you know it is a sign of dejection.

Sometimes there is an in-between stage when it can go either way. I remember a day back in the fall of 1983 when I used those words. After spending four years in seminary and planning to graduate in December, I had to take my Ordination Exams. It didn't matter how well you did in seminary -- four years could be flushed if you didn't pass. The tests took two days, and I remember thinking to myself when I closed the book: "It is finished." I'm not sure if I meant the tests or my pastoral career but at that point in time I didn't care. It was finished -- over, completed -- and there was a mixture of joy and uncertainty.

When Jesus uttered those words on the cross there were different responses. For His friends and disciples it meant that all their hopes and dreams were over. It meant the end of their plans for a triumphant Israel and for a promised Messiah -- back to a way of life known before. For the Pharisees it meant that the threat was finished, that this troublemaker would bother them no more, and that life would return again to normal. For Satan and the hosts of evil it meant the battle was finished, the victory over God was won. It was a defeat for God, who had tried to reach out to His fallen race in love and that race had nailed His Son to a tree.

Calvin Miller captures this scene in his book The Singer. In this allegorical story Christ is portrayed as a Singer, a Troubadour, who brings a song of Love to a world ruled by one called World Hater, who is Satan. In one scene, the Troubadour has been attached to a great machine of pain and suffering and finally after many hours the World Hater cries out to God:

"Look how he dies. Cry, Creator, Cry! This is my day to stand upon the breast of God and claim my victory over love. You lost the gamble. In but an hour your lover will be pulp upon the gallows. Did you tell him when his fingers formed the world, that he would die on Terra, groaning with his hands crushed in my great machine."

He laughed and turned to look again upon the troubadour.

"Now, who will sing the Father's Song?" he asked the dying man.

The Father wept, the fog swirled in bleak and utter numbness.

Very few, if any that day thought that the words meant more than that of a man dying in defeat. But maybe their reaction would have been different if they were aware of an event that took place in the Temple. According to Luke's gospel, when Jesus breathed His last, the curtain of the Temple was torn in two. The curtain symbolized the separation that existed between man and God because of sin. Only the Priest, after much ceremonial cleansing and sacrifices, could enter the Holy of Holies.