Devotion Booklets for Seasons of the Church Year Lent 2019 | Page 58

Monday, April 22, 2019
A Finished Project
Luke 24:1-8
“You have to eat all your vegetables before you get dessert,” says the exasperated parent. “We can’t leave until
this project is finished,” the manager tells employees eyeing the clock. “We aren’t going out to recess until
everyone is done with their work,” the teacher tells impatient students. It may be difficult but the expectations
are clear: complete the work and then the reward will certainly come.
On Easter morning the women go to the tomb with work to do. When they arrive they are perplexed as there is
no sign of Jesus’ body. An angel appears and asks the women what they were doing there. The angel tells the
women that the tomb was a place for dead people. They would not see Jesus there because he had finished his
work of dying and now he was alive, just as he said he would be.
Jesus came to this world with work to do. God had set forth a plan in eternity to save his people. He had to be
born into this world and live a perfect life in our place. Never once did he sin or disobey a single commandment.
He needed to be handed over to wicked men where he was crucified and he died, offered as an innocent sacrifice
for guilty people. Three days later he had to rise from the dead showing that his saving work was over.
Since Jesus was not in the tomb that Easter morning we can have confidence that God’s saving work is
completed. He had finished what his Father had sent him to do. With suffering and death behind him, Jesus
would put the final stamp on our salvation by rising from the grave. He had done what he had set out to
accomplish. He had finished what he told the disciples he would do.
Some days I feel like a pretty incomplete project. I look at my life and see the mistakes I continue to make. I am
confronted by sin that habitually plagues me. I suffer the effects of living in a fallen world. All of these things can
make me wonder if there is something more I have to do to. Easter assures me and reminds me that my salvation
is complete. Nothing more can be done to save me because Jesus has completed it all. Jesus has finished the task
of redeeming me and he has done everything he said he would do. He is not at the tomb because he has finished
his work of defeating death. The work of my salvation is done and Jesus is alive.
PRAYER: Heavenly Father, you sent Jesus to accomplish the work of my salvation. He has done everything
well for me. Give me faith and peace to trust in Jesus’ completed work. Amen.
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