By John MacDuff
"It is finished!" (John 19:30).
I have listened today in thought, at the Holy Table of Communion, to this victorious cry. Glorious is the fulfillment of the prophetic words--"He shall see of the travail of His soul, and shall be satisfied." A FINISHED work--and so finished and completed, that, in the retrospect, the divine-human lips could say with complacency, yes proclaim with unhesitating triumph, "I am satisfied!" Satisfied!--It was the very dignity and divinity of the majestic Speaker, which gave such singular meaning and emphasis to the assertion. The higher our aim, the more refined and elevated our views and attainments--the less are we satisfied with our own ideals. A little thing will satisfy a little mind. It requires a great thing to satisfy a great mind. The child is satisfied with a toy or bauble; the savage with the trinket--the gaudy bead, or piece of painted glass--while the civilized and educated art, in very proportion to their culture, fastidious--swift to detect the literary blemish, or the faulty note in music; or the crude touch of color on the picture--the flaw in the otherwise breathing marble. What pleases the unlettered villager will look poor in the eyes of the man of science.
And so, the higher we ascend in the ranks of being. What must it require to satisfy the mind of an angel--what must it be to satisfy the mind of God? Him whose kingdom is an everlasting kingdom--whose glory is set above the heavens--whose power is boundless, His wisdom infinite; His life-time eternity! Oh, what a work that must be, over which this all-wise and all-perfect Deity, in contemplating it, can say--'It is enough; I have reached my own divine Ideal. I am satisfied.' "Father, I have glorified You on the earth, I have finished the work You gave me to do!" In that moment of all moments, when His eyes were about to close in the sleep of death--a gleam of radiance breaks from His eclipsed soul. He could wish no more--the world's battle is won. With the smile of ineffable love and satisfaction on His lips, He cried, and cried "with a loud voice," as if He would wake the echo of all the ages, in order to proclaim the completion and the completeness of His victory--IT IS FINISHED!
"Satisfied"--"Finished"--blessed pillow for me to repose on in the retrospect of today! He has done all, and suffered all, and procured all for me. I see every attribute of the divine nature magnified. Justice exulting in the sublime vindication. Truth hastening to meet Mercy and Mercy meeting Righteousness. Let the rich man glory in his riches--let the strong man glory in his strength--let the wise man glory in his wisdom--but God forbid that I should glory, but in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ!
One other thought occurs in my contemplation of that mystery of darkness--that superhuman soul-struggle; ending though it did in so triumphant a victory. Yet vain, surely, is the question that has been asked, 'Could not less have satisfied? Could not anguish less dreadful in its accompaniments have sufficed? Could none of the ignominy and agony of that bitter path and that bitter cross have been dispensed with?' The analogy of nature would seem to tell that there is no useless nor unnecessary expenditure of agency even in the smallest of the works of God. If it be so with the lowlier divine operations, much more may we conclude that there will be no superfluous or unnecessary agency demanded in 'the work of works,'--the work of Redemption. From the first pang of Bethlehem's Babe in the cradle, until the Great Surety trampled Satan under His bleeding feet on Calvary, all was necessary. There was not an unnecessary leaf in that chaplet of sorrow which the Man of Sorrows wore!
I have been testifying today, through these significant memorials, to the sufferings of Christ; let me connect them with the glory which is to follow--anticipating that everlasting communion Sabbath, when the sufferings and the glory shall be sung in one blended strain by the ransomed. I have heard the sound of the Bridegroom's feet today; I have listened to His festal summons to the Feast on earth; let me be so living, and walking, and watching, and working, that the great final cry and summons to the Festal Hall of heaven may be met with the glad response--"Lo, this is our God--we have waited for Him!"
