What was Jesus feeling on the cross about what HE had started? Did He wonder what would happen to His apostles and disciples now that He was dying, leaving them behind? Did He wonder how well they would remember what He'd taught them about God, His Father, and through Him, their Father? At His Last Supper with them, He'd promised to send them the Holy Spirit to remind them of everything He'd taught them. But did He wonder how open to the Holy Spirit they and His other followers would be? Fr. James Martin, S.J., in "Seven Last Words," says
"In his classic text "The Spiritual Exercises," St. Ignatius invites us, as a way of praying, to picture ourselves at all the important moments of Jesus' life, including the Crucifixion, and ask ourselves: What was it like for him?
"Did Jesus, for example, know what was going to happen after the Crucifixion?
"You could argue that he did, because he said, 'Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.' By the same token, there are signs that he didn't know, for example, when he agonizes in the garden. And even if he understood something about his rising from the dead, there is the possibility that, as he hung on the cross, he still may have wondered whether what he had done would endure, whether the apostles understood what he had asked of them, whether the disciples heard what he had to say, and whether his followers would be able to continue with what he charged them to do. In other words, whether part of what you might call his 'project' would survive."
Wondering if Jesus suffered from an agonizing questioning of whether what he had begun would survive his death, we can wonder if there were many meanings in Jesus' mind when he said from the cross "It is finished."
Let's re-visit the scene:
"When Jesus had received the wine, he said, 'It is finished.' Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit." (John 19: 30.)
Fr. Martin says
"As I said, we are entering into speculative territory, but it's helpful for us to ask: What might have been going through the mind of the man who said he felt abandoned by God? Did he wonder if these men - who had misunderstood him, jockeyed for position, and abandoned him - would know what to do? Did he think his mission of preaching the Good News would continue with them? And although the Gospel of Matthew tells us that he had appointed Peter as head of his church, what did Jesus think about the future of that church as he hung on the cross? Remember that Peter denied even knowing him just a few hours ago and had also just abandoned him.
"So although Jesus may have said, 'It is finished,' referring to the completion of his task, he may also have thought, 'It is over,' when he thought of what would happen after his death. In this situation, again, Jesus may understand us very well."
How many times in our lives have we thought to ourselves and mourned "It is finished"?
The relationship or marriage is finished.
The job we loved is finished because we've been unexpectedly fired.
The loved one most dear to us has died, their life on earth with us is finished.
Life as we know it is finished because we have a serious, life-threatening disease.
The project we started got scuttled by the employee who came in after us.
Our dreams have finished, have died, because we can't find a good job in the field we wanted.
We haven't been able to have the marriage, or the children, we had so desired and hoped for since we were young.
Jesus understands us very well. He sits down beside us and touches our shoulder in understanding when we are disappointed to the depths of our souls.
Yet Jesus also, as our way, our Truth, our Life, leads us through and past disappointment to hope. From Good Friday to Easter Sunday.
Most Scripture scholars believe that when Jesus says "It is finished," what He means is that he will die in fulfillment of His Father's will, and that we can translate those words, "It is finished," as "It is completed" - He has done the task that His Father asked Him to do and His mission is completed.
"Indeed, in the overall theology of the Gospel of John, Jesus' total self-offering on the cross is the paradigm par excellence of God's love. Earlier in the Gospel, for example, John says that Jesus loved his friends 'to the end,' in other words, to the end of his life, or as completely as he could." (Martin.)
In John's Gospel, Jesus glorifies and reveals His Father most completely on the cross; at His last Supper, about to be crucified, He says "Now the Son of Man has been glorified, and God has been glorified in him." In His life and death, Jesus is totally obedient to the Father, reveals the depth of God's love for us, reveals that he is the Son of God. And that, in itself, is glorious!
When those we love - and perhaps eventually us - gather those they love around their bedside, or even when we celebrate their lives at funerals, what do we remember? The glorious, life-long depths of their love for us. Even though they - and we - and Jesus - go to our graves in the disappointment that not everything has been completed that we hoped for, that some of our dreams died along the way, that we don't know what will happen to our loved ones once we've died, we still have loved to the end. We have completed our mission, and sorrow and disappointment and a burning faith and trust in our Father exist side by side in our hearts.
For - there is Easter Sunday:
"As he hung on the cross, readying to die, readying to turn himself completely over to the Father, Jesus may not have been able to see how his work would continue. But the Father did, for God can use everything we bring to him and magnify it - even our dashed hopes. And just as Jesus multiplied the loaves and fishes for the crowds during his public ministry, God can take what we offer and multiply it.
"We may feel that our dreams are ending, but God has other dreams for us.
"We may feel that things have not worked out, but God has other workings in mind.
"We may feel that hope is dead, but God is the source of all hope."
(Fr. James Martin.)
Think of it - from one poor little crucified man in a forgotten little country, God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, has brought about a Church which is the greatest source of good in the world!
God will always accomplish all that God sets out to do, and we are all, in our sorrows and disappointments, an integral part of His plans. We never could see all that our little lives accomplish, how much our love affects those around us. As we move through those Good Friday times of our lives, we need to remember and hope for our own precious Easter Sundays, when everything will be made right and all will be well.