It Is Finished
The word we have is “Tetelestai," pronounced TE-Tel-ES-TAI. A Greek word, Tetelestai, means, in English, “It is Finished.” “It” here means the life, work, and, ultimately, suffering of Jesus—suffering, as we are told, on a Roman cross. Suffering, we are told, to wipe away the debt of our own sins; he suffered for us.
It’s possible that Jesus said these words in Aramaic or possibly even Hebrew, but the oldest Bibles we have are in Greek. The scriptures were very likely only ever written in Greek, as it was the lingua franca of the first-century Roman empire. Whatever words were spoken, they were written as Greek. When we speak the last words of Christ, we mean Tetelestai.
With the spark of life gone from his body, the soldiers took down his mortal vessel from the cross and gave his broken form to his mother so that she may bury him before sundown and the beginning of the Sabbath. People talk about the perfection of Micheangelo’s “David,” but the dreadful beauty of “La Pieta” is devastating. A very young woman, angels told Mary that god had a plan for the seed in her womb. Did they warn her of the moment when she would hold his breathless flesh, with his blood staining her scarves and garments?
For Easter to be beautiful, Friday must be terrible. We see the image of Christ alive on the cross that we become desensitized to it. If you’ve ever loved a mother who loved a child, the moment of La Pieta will make the moment of Christ’s death real, painful, and terrifying.