[John 19:1-42 (focusing on 17-30)] 2025.09.28
Proclaim the King’s gospel
Big Idea: Proclaim with the King that “it is finished”, for he has fulfilled Scripture by his death on the cross
1. Pilate’s proclamation: Jesus is the King
2. The soldiers’ actions: The Scripture is fulfilled
3. The King’s exclamation: It is finished
In the book Seven Habits of Highly Effective people, the author Steven Covey invites his readers to do a simple visualisation exercise.
He asked them to imagine that you’re going to the funeral of a loved one.
You see the faces of your friends and relatives as you walk in.
However, as you walk close to the front, you realise that this is a funeral for you.
You hear your family talking about you at the front, you hear your friends talking about you in conversations.
What kind of conversation will they have?
What will you be remembered for?
Steven Covey says that once you have a clearer idea of what you want to be remembered for, you will have a better idea of how you will live.
That’s a hard thing to think about, but it’s also a good thing to think about.
How do you finish well?
As we come together as a Church, we thank God for gathering us together for the past 156 years.
This Church has outlasted many members, many Parish Councillors, many wardens and even Rectors.
Praise God!
But even our Church will one day come to an end.
How do you have a good finish as a Church?
And more personally, how do we have a good finish as a person?
Please open your Bible with me to John, beginning from chapter 19 verse 1.
We’re going to see what a good finish looks like.
We’re going to see three things in today’s passage:
1. Pilate’s proclamation: Jesus is the King
2. The soldiers’ actions: The Scripture is fulfilled
3. The King’s exclamation: It is finished
Before we look into it, let’s pray, “Father, make your Word a swift Word, passing from the ear to the heart, from the heart to the lip and conversation; that, as the rain returns not empty, so neither may your Word, but accomplish that for which it is given. Amen.”
1. Pilate’s proclamation: Jesus is the King
In the final chapter of the gospel of John, we see the religious leaders of the Jews wanting to finish Jesus off.
They took him to Pontius Pilate, the man who was in charge of Jerusalem at the time.
Pilate tried to find out what Jesus did and why the Jewish leaders wanted him dead so badly.
After questioning Jesus, Pilate concluded that Jesus saw himself as some sort of king, but strangely, Jesus said that his kingdom was not of this world.
He might have found Jesus strange, but certainly not a threat to the Roman Empire, the greatest kingdom of this world at that time.
But perhaps what Pilate found was even stranger than Jesus, was the fact that the Jews were insistent that Jesus should die.
That’s where today’s passage begins.
Look with me at John chapter 19, beginning from verse 1.
It’s a long chapter and I’ll focus on verses 19-30.
At the beginning of the chapter, Pilate ordered to have Jesus flogged, hoping that the Jews would be satisfied with that.
But the Jews wanted more; they wanted Jesus to be crucified, to die on the cross.
The Jewish leaders said that Jesus broke their law by claiming to be the Son of God, and they said that if Pilate released him, Pilate was no friend of Caesar.
However, the more Pilate questioned Jesus, the more he was afraid.
Pilate would’ve recognised that there was something different about Jesus; unlike other prisoners, Jesus wasn’t afraid at all.
Was there something more to Jesus that he didn’t know about?
In the end, Pilate gave in to the Jewish leaders’ demand.
Pilate handed Jesus over to be crucified.
What was Jesus guilty of? Jesus was guilty of being the King of Jews.
That’s a strange charge to be guilty of.
Usually, if you are found guilty, you’re guilty of something that you shouldn’t have done.
If you are guilty of being a thief, it’s because you stole something that you shouldn’t have.
But what was Jesus guilty of?
What was the charge against him? For being the King of the Jews.
Look with me at verses 19-20, “Pilate also had a sign made and put on the cross. It said: JESUS OF NAZARETH, THE KING OF THE JEWS. 20 Many of the Jews read this sign, because the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek.”
Pilate wanted the whole world to know that Jesus was charged with being the King of the Jews.
He had it written in Aramaic, the language of the locals, in Latin, the official language of the soldiers, and in Greek, the common language of the Roman Empire.
Along with Jesus, there were two others who were sentenced to die on the cross at Golgotha that day.
Dying on the cross was a cruel and humiliating way to die.
Whoever walked near Jesus as he hung on the cross would see the sign and understand that Jesus was on the cross for being the King of the Jews.
Why did Pilate put this strange charge on the cross of Jesus?
It wasn’t because he really believed that Jesus was the King of the Jews.
After all, it was the Roman Empire that was in charge, and the Empire had made him, Pontius Pilate, to keep the peace and order over the Jews.
While strictly speaking not the king, Pilate certainly had more political power than anyone in Jerusalem.
However, he knew that it was the Jewish religious leaders who wanted Jesus dead, and that they were forcing Pilate’s hand by making accusations about Jesus making himself king, even though Pilate didn’t believe that Jesus was a real threat to the Roman Empire.
Pilate lost to the Jews in his battle to free Jesus and so, to get back at the Jews, he made this charge against Jesus, “Jesus of Nazareth: King of the Jews”.
It’s as if he’s saying to the Jews, “You said that he made himself a king and so deserve to die, and so, that will be his charge.
He’s the King of the Jews, he’s your king, and he’s now dying on a Roman cross.”
It’s Pilate’s way of getting back at the Jews.
The chief priests wanted to change the charge to ‘He said, “I am the King of the Jews”’, something that Jesus had never said.
However, Pilate made up his mind; what he’s written, he’s written.
Like many instances throughout the Gospel of John, those who were against Jesus spoke more truth than they knew.
Despite Pilate’s mockery, despite the Jews’ false accusations, and despite Jesus being hung on the cross, Pilate’s proclamation about Jesus was true.
Jesus was and is the King of the Jews, but not in the political sense.
Jesus wasn’t leading a rebellion against the Romans to free the Jews.
Pilate didn’t believe it, and neither did the Jewish leaders.
However, Jesus was and still is the King of the Jews, because God has appointed him to be the King of everyone and everything, including the Jews, the Greeks, the Romans, the First Nation people of Australia, all the immigrants who came to Australia, and everyone who’s ever been born.
That’s what the Christ in Jesus Christ means. The word ‘Christ’ means ‘The Anointed One’.
Jesus is the Christ, the Anointed One, the One chosen by God, to be King over everything that he’s made.
This is what the Bible says in Philippians 2:8-11, “he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death— even to death on a cross. For this reason God highly exalted him and gave him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee will bow — in heaven and on earth and under the earth —and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.
Though Jesus was fully God, Jesus humbled himself, submitted himself to obeying God, even to dying on the cross.
That’s why God exalted him to the Highest Place, that’s why Jesus is the King of Kings and Lord of lords.
Pontius Pilate thought he was in charge, but God used Pilate to proclaim to the world that Jesus was truly the King.
What Pilate proclaimed about Jesus, we’ve been proclaiming as a Church since 1869.
The big difference, of course, was that Pilate proclaimed this in mockery, but we proclaim this as truth and we proclaim it with joy.
Just as Pilate declared that truth in Aramaic, Latin, and Greek, we want to proclaim this same truth in other languages as well, so that whenever someone walks near our Church, whenever someone hears us speak, whenever someone sees us act, they would see and hear that Jesus is King.
We want to be a place where people can see the Gospel, hear the Gospel, believe the Gospel, and tell the Gospel.
We thank God that we’ve started the Mandarin parallel service last week.
We want people to hear that Jesus is King in Mandarin.
We also want people to hear that Jesus is King in English, and we’ll continue to hear this in the all-together service here in the Church building.
God willing, we want to proclaim that Jesus is King in other languages, the languages of Kogarah.
We want people to hear that Jesus is King through the language of teenagers – they speak their own language, don’t they?
We want to be a Church that’s like the sign that Pilate put up.
We want people to see us and hear us and know that Jesus is King.
I don’t have to tell you that it’s not just the minister’s job to proclaim that Jesus is King.
We proclaim that Jesus is King, together as a Church.
All of us are called to proclaim that Jesus is King.
Start by asking Jesus today, “Jesus, my King, how do you want me to serve you today?”
And then ask one another, “How can we serve Jesus today? How will we proclaim Jesus, today, next week, next year?”
2. The soldiers’ actions: The Scripture is fulfilled
How do we know that what happened to Jesus wasn’t just a tragedy, that it wasn’t just him being in the wrong place at the wrong time?
Even as Jesus was hanging on the cross, there were things happening around Jesus that showed that what was happening was planned by God.
We see this in how the soldiers’ actions fulfilled Scripture.
What seemed like a mundane act fulfilled God’s word; what they did fulfilled Scripture.
Look with me at verse 23, “When the soldiers crucified Jesus, they took his clothes and divided them into four parts, a part for each soldier. They also took the tunic, which was seamless, woven in one piece from the top.”
Do you know what’s the best way to divide a cake between two siblings? You get one to cut the cake and the other to choose.
The soldiers probably didn’t take a knife out and cut each piece of Jesus’ clothing into four separate pieces.
It might include items like a head covering, a belt, sandals, and an outer robe.
However, Jesus had a seamless tunic that they had trouble dividing among themselves.
It would be a shame to cut it into four different pieces because that would ruin it.
And so they cast lots for it; whoever wins will get the whole tunic.
It might sound like a small and mundane detail, but even this was within God’s plan.
Look with me at verse 24, “So they said to one another, “Let’s not tear it, but cast lots for it, to see who gets it.” This happened that the Scripture might be fulfilled that says: They divided my clothes among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing. This is what the soldiers did.”
This was a reference to Psalm 22:18, “They divided my garments among themselves, and they cast lots for my clothing.”
Even this tiny detail was prepared by God; there was nothing that happened at the cross of Jesus that was outside God’s plan.
This psalm was written by King David, himself a king chosen by God, about one thousand years before Jesus’ crucifixion.
As it turns out, it was more than just a record of David’s sorrow but a prophecy of what would happen to Jesus at the cross.
The Psalm described how the Anointed One, the King, now fulfilled in Jesus, would be humiliated by having his clothes divided and his clothing won by lot.
It would seem like the Anointed One, the King, was helpless and weak.
He couldn’t even stop his own clothes from being taken by soldiers.
How could he be the King?
But if we go back a few chapters in the Gospel of John, we saw that Jesus had humbled himself by taking his outer clothes off on another occasion.
That happened just the night before, when he was about to have supper, and Jesus took his outer clothes off to wash his disciples’ feet.
Jesus, willingly, took his outer garments off to serve his disciples by washing their feet.
He showed them what humility and love is all about, and he wants his disciples to do the same for other disciples.
And now, at the cross, he continued to act with humility and love, by willingly subjecting himself to the humiliation of the cross, by having his clothes taken away, in order to obey God the Father, even to the point of death on the cross.
That’s who Jesus is; Jesus is a Humble King.
Not only is Jesus the Humble King, but he’s also the Kind King.
Even when he was on the cross, he made sure that the disciple whom he loved would look after his mother after he’s gone.
He said to his mother, “Woman, this is your son”.
And he said to his disciple, “Here is your mother”.
The disciple will now have the responsibility of looking after his master’s mother.
Jesus is the Humble King, the Kind King, and he’s the Obedient King.
Verse 28, “After this, when Jesus knew that everything was now finished that the Scripture might be fulfilled, he said, “I’m thirsty.”
Jesus knew that everything was now finished.
This was it; He was about to die on the cross. In order to fulfil the Scripture, He said, “I’m thirsty”.
Someone then gave him some wine vinegar to drink.
This wasn’t a drink to make Jesus feel better.
It was cheap, sour wine, that was there to prolong the person being crucified on the cross to suffer a little longer.
The punishment of dying on a cross was designed to make the person suffer until their very last breath and the sour wine was there to prolong the suffering a little longer.
However, notice that it was Jesus who initiated this act just moments before his death.
Even this act of having wine vinegar was recorded in Scripture.
Psalm 69:21. “Instead, they gave me gall for my food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
Jesus knew the Psalm and used it to show that he was actively, intentionally, fulfilling Scripture.
He was doing what God had told him to do.
Of all the psalms, why did Jesus choose this one to fulfil?
It was likely because the theme of drinking had been an especially powerful one just the night before.
Jesus had prayed that the Father would remove the cup from him.
The cup that Jesus referred to was the cup of God’s wrath against our sin.
It was the fury God has in store for all of us who have sinned against God. It was so horrible that even Jesus himself didn’t want to drink from God’s wrath. However, because of his obedience to God, he would drink the cup that God’s given him to drink.
Here at the cross, he’s thirsty, not because he wanted to drink the sour wine, but because he’s ready to drink from God’s cup of wrath.
Jesus was obedient unto death. He is the Humble, Kind, and Obedient King.
A kind King the world might understand, but a humble and obedient King?
What kind of king obeys even to the point of death?
It’s the King whose very nature is God.
Jesus, God the Son, humbles and obeys God the Father perfectly.
That’s the king we follow, that’s the king we obey.
As his people, we follow in his footsteps of being humble, being kind and being obedient.
Wouldn’t it be good if our Church, St Paul’s Kogarah, is known as the place where people proclaim Jesus, the humble, kind and obedient king and a people who follow the footsteps of the king as we come together in humility, kindness and obedience?
My dream is that we’ll serve one another in humility, not thinking that we’re better than one another, but as Christ would have us, to consider one another better than ourselves.
I want to see that as a Church, we’ll not treat anyone with cruelty and apathy but with generosity and kindness.
I want us as a people who have a thirst for obedience, who long to obey God even when it hurts.
I thank God that I do see glimpses of Christ’s humility, kindness and obedience in our Church.
It’s humbling and precious to see that.
My prayer is that we’ll continue to learn and grow as a Church so that more and more people can join us as we follow our humble, kind and obedient king, the King Jesus.
3. The King’s exclamation: It is finished
Look with me at verse 30, the final verse for today, “When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished.” Then bowing his head, he gave up his spirit.”
After King Jesus drank the sour wine, he shouted, “It is finished”.
In Mark’s account of the same event, in Mark 15:37, Jesus gave a loud cry and breathed his last.
What was a loud cry in Mark was King Jesus’ exclamation, “It is finished”.
It’s not a cry of defeat but the cry of victory.
It’s the ‘woohoo’ as a Formula One driver speeds past the finish line.
It’s the throwing of academic hats in the air after a student graduates.
It is finished! It’s done!
Jesus has come and completed the task that God the Father has sent him to do. What was the task?
To take off the glory that He has as the Son of God, to be born of a woman, that is, to become mortal, that is, to die.
And Jesus was sent to earth to die for the sins of all who would put their trust in him.
We are all mortals, we are all heading towards death, because all of us have sinned and have fallen short of the glory of God.
We all deserve to drink from the bitter cup of God’s fury.
And yet, Jesus had come to drink it so that those who believe in him will not face God’s judgement, they will not perish, but will have eternal life.
There’s nothing more that we can do to add to what Christ has done.
It is finished.
Even Christ himself doesn’t have to bring any more sacrifices.
He’s done it once; his sacrifice on the cross was enough.
It is finished. He bowed his head, he gave up his spirit, for the sake of the many.
This is the difference between what Christians and other religions believe.
Other religions, including sadly some who call themselves Christians, want to add to what Jesus has done.
Some even offer sacrifices to God, thinking that their sacrifices would make them acceptable to God.
But no, in our Church, at St Paul’s Kogarah, and in many churches thoughout history and all around the world, we believe that Jesus has made the one, perfect, and sufficient sacrifice for the sins of the world.
Jesus said it is finished.
If we offer any additional sacrifice for our salvation, we’ll be saying that Jesus has not finished.
We would be saying the very opposite of what Jesus said
No, as Christians, we can rest on the sure hope that what Jesus said is true, and that if we had put our trust in Him, then our sins had been paid for, and that by His blood, by His death on the cross, He has bought us to be a people of His very own.
Jesus has done it. It is finished.
Today, we’re celebrating the 156th anniversary of the Church.
I thank God for his mercy in leading us over these past 156 years; it’s a wonderful blessing.
But as good as our Church is, it will finish one day.
I don’t know how to tell you this, but I probably won’t be here for another 156 years.
My time at our Church will finish one day; your time at our Church will finish one day.
In fact, both you and I will one day finish our life here on earth.
How do you have a good finish as a Church? How do you have a good finish as a Christian?
The secret of what it means to have a good finish as a Church, as a Christian, as a person, is not in how much we’ve collected at the end, it’s not in the legacy we leave behind, it’s not even in how hard we tried to be humble, or kind or obedient.
The secret of what it means to have a good finish is whether we put our trust in Jesus’ finish on the cross.
The secret of what it means to have a good finish to our life, to our Church, is whether we are one of the many who were on Jesus’ mind, when he said, “It is finished.”
The goodness of our own finish rests in whether our hope is in Jesus’ own good finish.
As a church that now rests on Jesus’ own finish, let’s…
Proclaim with the King that “it is finished”, for he has fulfilled Scripture by his death on the cross.
Voddie Baucham Jr. a well-known preacher in the US, has died earlier this week from a medical incident. He was 56.
On his association’s social media post, it reads, “We are saddened to inform friends that our dear brother, Voddie Baucham, Jr., has left the land of the dying and entered the land of the living.”
I thought I read it wrong, but it’s actually right.
Voddie Baucham Jr was in the land of dying, our land, and is now with Jesus in the land of the living.
That’s what finishing well looks like.
It’s hope in the finished work of the Lord Jesus Christ.
If you have trust in the finished work of Christ, you will finish well; you will have a good finish.
Do you know with certainty that you will finish well?
Here are three questions for us to think about this week.
1. Do I find satisfaction in knowing that Jesus’ work is finished?
2. When did someone else tell me that they saw me or heard me proclaiming Jesus as King?
3. How do I adjust my view of what’s good and glorious in light of what Jesus has done on the cross?
St Paul’s Kogarah, Proclaim with the King that “it is finished”, for he has fulfilled Scripture by his death on the cross.
Let’s pray, “Lord Jesus, thank you for leaving your Father’s glory to come to live with us, and to die for us. Thank you for finishing the work the Father has given you to do. By your very own Spirit, help us to proclaim your name and what you’ve done, until life’s end. Let us finish well, as we trust in what you have finished. Amen.”