God Knows

Have you ever laid awake at night wondering if you actually did that thing you thought you did, or that thing that you went in the kitchen to do but might have gotten distracted? Have you turned back home to make sure you locked the door? Have you double-checked with a friend to figure out if you actually did something or only thought about doing it? 

This is the curse of being human - not knowing whether we've even done the things we intended to do, sometimes wrestling with the insecurity of not being able to remember. To know. Always wondering if there's one more thing or something we forgot or some new little detail that's going to pop up that will take what we think was a finished job and make it unfinished. 

We burn ourselves at both ends trying to accomplish things, but we never quite feel like our work is finished. Even if we did it one hundred percent right, there's something always nagging at us that we missed something. 

Not so with Jesus. 

Perhaps some of His most famous words were, "It is finished." These, He spoke as He breathed His last on the Cross. But He actually knew it was finished before He spoke it. 

John 19:28 says, "Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, Jesus said, 'I am thirsty.'" 

I am thirsty. At the moment that Jesus knew that everything was finished, He did not say, "It is finished." He said, "I am thirsty." 

He knew it was complete before it was over. He knew He was done before He died. He knew that what He had been sent to do had been accomplished. Before the spear, before the tomb, before the stone rolled away. 

He knew it was finished. 

So He asks for a drink. 

It seems so strange, so casual to us. Think about finally being caught up on stuff, finally feeling like there's nothing too pressing, and grabbing a drink and a few minutes to yourself to relax. 

The death of Jesus was agonizing - that's how we portray it. But I think, in those last moments, it wasn't. I think that's maybe what captivated everyone around Him at that moment. He knew it was finished, so He settled into peace...before He settled into death. 

There was no question left in His mind. There was no hesitation. There was no wondering. He wasn't asking whether something else was to come, whether there was another shoe to drop, whether He missed a moment or mishandled one, whether He really had done everything He set out to do. He knew. He just knew, and this allowed Him to relax. To settle into peace. 

To ask for a drink. 

I want that kind of chill in my life. I want to be able to let go like that. I want that kind of confidence. To know that it is done, that I did what I was supposed to do, that there's nothing else I can do, and to be able to just let it go and settle into peace. 

His final, unagonized breath tells me it's possible.