Jesus has just revealed God’s thirst for humans to be reconciled to him. Misunderstanding his declaration, someone gives him wine vinegar. According to Matthew’s account of the crucifixion, Jesus is offered the drink twice. The first time, he refuses to drink (Matthew 27.34). The second time, he drinks (Matthew 27.48). John only records this second instance at which Jesus accepts the drink. And immediately after Jesus accepts the drink, he says, “It is finished.” Why did Jesus accept the drink the second time?

In Luke’s Gospel we read that, during the Last Supper, Jesus tells his disciples, “Take this and divide it among you. For I tell you I will not drink again from the fruit of the vine until the kingdom of God comes.” (Luke 22.17-18) Yet, at the cross, Jesus clearly drinks the wine vinegar, which, being a derivative of wine, is a drink that comes from the fruit of the vine. What sense can we make of this?

There are only two possibilities. On the one hand, we could say that Jesus intended not to drink the wine vinegar, but because he was on the cross and in immense pain, he either forgot about his earlier words or decided that they were not important. That is, we could admit that there is a dissonance between Jesus’ earlier words and his actions on the cross. I don’t know about you, but this is not a Jesus I could follow for he shows us that, when the going gets tough, we can simply contradict our earlier commitments.

On the other hand, we could say that Jesus intended to be true to his earlier words and that he was! What this means is that, he drank the wine vinegar because the kingdom of God had come. This may be surprising for us, because many of us think that the kingdom of God will come in the future. We are led to believe that this is something that is only a future hope.

However, if Jesus’ earlier words and his actions on the cross are not contradictory, then the only conclusion we can reach is that he drank the wine vinegar because the kingdom of God had come. At some instance between the two occasions on which he was offered the drink the kingdom of God had come.

This should not be surprising. The Gospels clearly indicate that Jesus began his ministry with the announcement that the kingdom of God was near. It was imminent. It was being brought close in and through his ministry. When he began his ministry he clearly indicated that bringing the kingdom of God was the task with which he had been charged. It was his divine vocation.

However, if we believe that the kingdom of God is only a future hope, then we must conclude that Jesus was mistaken when he claimed that the kingdom of God was at hand. We must conclude that his life and death did not accomplish the task he claimed to have been charged to do. We must conclude that he was horribly wrong about his divine vocation.

I’m not comfortable going down that rabbit hole!

The only possibility then is that Jesus drank the wine vinegar because the kingdom of God had come. He had finished the task God had assigned to him. He had brought to fruition his divine vocation. And indeed, this is precisely what he says in this sixth word from the cross. After all, what else could he have meant when, right after drinking the wine vinegar, he declared, “It is finished”? We often take it in a very self-centered way. We say that ‘it is finished’ refers to what he had to do to provide forgiveness for us. But Jesus’ mind and heart were always primarily concerned with doing the will of the Father who had sent him. And so when he says, “It is finished” the primary meaning should be that he had finished the task given to him by his Father. And that task was to bring the kingdom of God.

Prayer:

Our loving Father, too often we have failed to give adequate importance to the real circumstances surrounding the life and death of Jesus, choosing rather to deal with this or that verse in isolation from the rest of his life. Enable us, by the power of your Spirit, to take things in a holistic manner. Enable us to recognize that Jesus was driven primarily by the desire to fulfill the vocation you had given him. Enable us to resist the temptation of making Jesus’ work refer primarily to us and our forgiveness. Enable us to see that our forgiveness and salvation, crucial though it is for us, is but a small part of Jesus’ work of redeeming all of creation for you. We pray this in the name of Jesus. Amen.