April 17: It Is Finished!
♫ Music:
Day 44 - Thursday, April 17
Maundy Thursday
Title: It Is Finished!
Scripture #1: John 19:30 (NKJV)
So when Jesus had received the sour wine, He said, “It is finished!” And bowing His head, He gave up His spirit.
Scripture #2: John 17:1–5 (NKJV)
Jesus spoke these words, lifted up His eyes to heaven, and said: “Father, the hour has come. Glorify Your Son, that Your Son also may glorify You, as You have given Him authority over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as You have given Him. And this is eternal life, that they may know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom You have sent. I have glorified You on the earth. I have finished the work which You have given Me to do. And now, O Father, glorify Me together with Yourself, with the glory which I had with You before the world was.”
Poetry & Poet:
“Holy Thursday”
by William Blake
Is this a holy thing to see
In a rich and fruitful land,
Babes reduced to misery
Fed with cold and usurous hand?
Is that trembling cry a song?
Can it be a song of joy?
And so many children poor?
It is a land of poverty!
And their sun does never shine.
And their fields are bleak & bare.
And their ways are fill'd with thorns.
It is eternal winter there.
For where-e’er the sun does shine,
And where-e’er the rain does fall:
Babe can never hunger there,
Nor poverty the mind appall.
IT IS FINISHED!
Some realities are too immense to comprehend; their scope too magnificent to take in.
A naked man hangs on a tree, sides heaving as he fights for breath. Everything about him screams mortality. Hours earlier his flesh had made contact with the earth of which it was made, his tears betraying the distress of one bound by time and space running up against the limits of his capacity. Willing spirit drove weak flesh to cry out to the Father with prayers and petitions for deliverance from death. Hebrews claims he was heard because of his reverent submission, yet this source of eternal life still found himself hanging to death, summoning precarious breath to express abandonment and, at the last, to state finality.
Standing at the foot of the cross, I want to shake the drooping frame and ask: What is finished? In what way is it finished? What does it all mean?
A respectably clothed Rabbi sits in prayer, illumined by lamplight and surrounded by well-fed friends. Raising eyes to heaven, he concludes his touching farewell speech by allowing his disciples into an intimate moment of conversation with the Father. Serene Savior sees beyond the fleshy fray to gaze on eternal glory, recognizing the coming of the hour He has anticipated from outside of time. Now has come. He petitions the Father to glorify him with the glory they shared from the foundation of the world.
Disrespectful and disturbed, I want to tug His sleeve and ask: In what form, this “glory”? In which dimension, this “now”?
Much like Rothko’s painting, these glimpses of dimensionality emerging from within the life of God both delight and confuse me. How can the God who is One experience separation? How can the infinite I AM be mortal; the thrice holy Creator learn and be made perfect through suffering? But perhaps closer to home, how can gore and glory look so alike?
The Lamb slain before the foundation of the world asks to be glorified through slaughter.
The Son glorified before the creation of the world submits to a process of creaturely formation.
Creation is both finished and begun; eternity entered and brought down to earth.
And we, included as human witnesses to the kaleidoscope of breathtaking interplay amongst Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, get swept up in the story. Though we spill endless ink attempting to nail it down, our senses, circumscribed by time and space, quickly run the gamut of what they can take in. But that doesn’t stop us from peering into eternity, straining beyond the bounds of our mortality to see the Love of the Father for the Son by enthroning Him on the tree; the Glory of the Son with the Father as together they spoke all things to be.
Somehow suffering fits right into the middle of this One Creator’s glory. Somehow we, God’s redeemed bits of earth, fit right into the middle of this Triune Lover’s interplay. Though the mind cannot comprehend it, the heart stretches a little wider at the contemplation of it. And all within this temple cries, “Glory!”
Prayer:
Who are we that you are mindful of us; mere mortals that reveal yourself to us? Bless you, Beautiful One, for giving us the eternal life of knowing you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. Open the eyes of our hearts that we may see You, enthroned on the tree and in all eternity. Finish your new creation, that you may be glorified in us and we be made perfect in you; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and forever.
Amen.
Rev’d. Tiffany Clark, M.A., I.C.S.
Assistant to the Rector
Christ Church
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Author and Spiritual Director
For more information about the artwork, music, and poetry selected for this day, we have provided resources under the “About” tab located next to the “Devotional” tab.
About the Art:
Untitled (Blue, Green, Brown)
Mark Rothko
1952
Oil on canvas
103 x 83 in.
Private collection
Untitled (Blue, Green, and Brown) was painted in 1952 by artist Mark Rothko. This piece of abstract art belongs to the Color Field Painting movement. Within the abstract genre, Rothko’s composition exemplifies his exploration of color and form, dispensing with representational imagery to evoke an emotional response in the viewer. Rothko's paintings are known for their ability to evoke a sense of transcendence and a spiritual quality by being able to immerse the viewer in a way that allows them to overcome the sense of confinement of a gallery or museum, and to experience the painting as if it were projecting beyond the walls. To contribute to this effect, he painted on large canvases and left them unframed, often continuing to paint on the canvas around the edges of the stretcher-board. His intention was to defeat or dissolve the sense of confinement that comes from gallery and museum walls and allow the experience of the paintings to project beyond them.
https://www.abc.net.au/religion/transcendence-and-ethics-in-paintings-of-mark-rothko/13197930
About the Artist:
Mark Rothko (b. 1903–1970) was an American artist of Latvian-Jewish descent. Like many of his peers, he found his direction and his place in New York. It was there, in 1925, that he began to study at Parsons School of Design under painter Arshile Gorky, who powerfully influenced him and many other Abstract Expressionists. Rothko first developed this compositional strategy in 1947. Described as “Color Field Painting” by art critic Clement Greenberg in 1955—a term that stuck—it is a style characterized by significant open space and an expressive use of color. Rothko was one of its pioneers. “His colored rectangles seemed to dematerialize into pure light,” wrote MoMA’s former chief curator of painting and sculpture William S. Rubin. Rothko spent the rest of his career exploring the limitless possibilities of layering variously sized and colored rectangles onto fields of color.
https://www.moma.org/artists/5047
About the Music: “Hallelujah, What a Savior!” from the album Beautiful Savior
Lyrics:
“Man of sorrows!” what a name,
For the Son of God who came.
Ruined sinners to reclaim!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Bearing shame and scoffing rude,
In my place condemned He stood,
Sealed my pardon with His blood;
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
[Music break]
Lifted up was He to die,
“It is finished,” was His cry;
Now in heav’n exalted high:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
When He comes, our glorious King,
All His ransomed home to bring,
Then anew this song we’ll sing:
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
Hallelujah, what a Savior!
About the Composer:
Philip Paul Bliss (1838–1876) was an American composer, conductor, writer of hymns, and a bass-baritone gospel singer. He wrote many well-known hymns, including "Hold the Fort," "Almost Persuaded," "Hallelujah, What a Savior!," "Wonderful Words of Life,” and the music for Horatio Spafford's "It Is Well with My Soul" (1876). In 1869, Bliss formed an association with Dwight L. Moody, the famous Chicago preacher, who urged him to give up his job and become a missionary singer. In 1874, Bliss decided he was called to full-time Christian evangelism. Bliss made a significant amount of money from music royalties and subsequently gave them to charity and to support his evangelical endeavors.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philip_Bliss
About the Performers: The Maranatha Baptist University Choir and Orchestra with Dr. David Brown
Maranatha Baptist University's department of music has a solid reputation for rigorous music courses, accredited music degrees, successful graduates, professional and personable faculty, musical excellence, hands-on training, and a strong emphasis on ministering with music. The Maranatha Symphonic Band, under the direction of Dr. David Brown, is a group of approximately forty that performs a broad selection of music, including sacred and secular classics. The band performs at campus events and several chapels for the entire Maranatha community, including the patriotic Religious Liberty Day chapel, a popular Christmas chapel, and a worshipful Good Friday chapel.
https://www.mbu.edu/campus-life/fine-arts/music-and-drama-ministry/
About the Poetry and Poet:
William Blake (1757–1827) was an English poet, painter, and printmaker. Largely unrecognized during his lifetime, Blake is now considered a seminal figure in the history of the poetry and visual arts of the Romantic age. Blake was a nonconformist who associated with some of the leading radical thinkers of his day, such as American founding father Thomas Paine and author Mary Wollstonecraft. In defiance of eighteenth-century neoclassical conventions, he appreciated imagination over reason in the creation of both his poetry and images, and asserted that ideal forms should be constructed not from observations of nature, but from inner visions. Although Blake was considered possibly mad by contemporaries for his idiosyncratic views, he was held in high regard by later critics for his expressiveness and creativity, and for the philosophical and mystical undercurrents within his work.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Blake
https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poets/william-blake
About the Devotion Writer:
Rev’d. Tiffany Clark, M.A., I.C.S.
Assistant to the Rector
Christ Church
Georgetown, Washington, D.C.
Author and Spiritual Director
Tiffany Clark serves as Lay Assistant Minister at Christ Church, Georgetown, is a spiritual director, and is a candidate for holy orders in the Diocese of Washington, D.C. Formerly a visiting professor and consultant for spiritual formation with Development Associates International (DAI), Tiffany completed her MA ICS through Biola’s Chiang Mai Extension Center during the twenty years she and her husband served overseas, primarily in South Asia.