“When Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished.” And bowing His head, He yielded up His spirit.” John 19:30
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” I had to ask, “What is finished?” And I thought whatever it was, must have begun at the Garden.
Much of Christianity thinks of “the fall” as a mistake. Not me. Not anymore. The words aren’t in there. “Their eyes were opened,” Genesis (3:7) says. It was a revelation. But this was an estrangement, nevertheless. And following the narrative into the third and fourth generations, mankind drifted from walking with God, to talking to him, to talking about him, to replacing him.
But from the beginning, it was “not good for the man to be alone…” (Genesis 2: 18). So I see the entire Bible as the story line of this separation and then the necessary reunion.
As a painter, I know a composition begins with the establishments of darks and lights. And while at many points during its creation, the painting looks broken and wrong, it doesn’t fall completely together until I finally put the brushes down.
When it’s finished.