Jesus said at the cross: Everything is accomplished. John 19, 30

Dear reader,

Albert Einstein is said to have once asked Cardinal Faulhaber: What will you do, when mathematics prove that the faith in God and Jesus Christ is false? The Cardinal answered: I would wait patiently until the mistake is discovered.

Errors from calculations happen to us all the time. How many plans and calculations turn out to be miscalculations in the end? Has our society miscalculated itself with its plans of endless economic growth, of everlasting prosperity? How many calculations do no longer add up in these days?

God calculates differently. He turns the minus into a plus. The cross of Golgotha is God's unmistakable “plus sign” for every person. Jesus says on the cross: Everything is completed! Three plus signs of God's love:

Our first sign of a “plus”: It is accomplished - without our consent!

God has completed his work of redemption for this world, through Jesus Christ. He did it without our consent. He did not ask us. He has accomplished it even against our will. Nobody wanted it. Nobody expected it. From the beginning Jesus met with an icy rejection. Already at his birth there was "no room in the inn". Jesus had nothing in this world. He had no comfort. People rejected him. And that's still the case until today. From the beginning, God did His work of redemption against the will of mankind. Nothing could dissuade him. At the cross of Golgotha, Jesus completed God ´s way of salvation for all mankind. God could also have decided to let us go! But God loves us human beings without limits, you and I. Even though we may not want to admit it.

God ´s love has paid all debts. Jesus has paid for all wrong calculations, for all miscalculations. Jesus has paid for all our “minuses”, which we have with God. Not enough charity. Too little mercy. Too little humility. God has many demands. "He forgave us all our sins, having canceled the charge of our legal indebtedness, which stood against us and condemned us; he has taken it away, nailing it to the cross. (Col. 2, 14). Jesus paid for everything.

That applies to everyone. Even those who live in the "back row", whose lives are ruined. He cares about those people who would like to throw their lives away because they are at a loss what to do next. Those who are furthest away, they are closest to Jesus. God, the creator, does not let go of his creatures. He wants to heal everyone and flood their lives with his love. Our salvation is founded in the death of Jesus. Jesus Christ has accomplished it.

Our second plus: It is accomplished - without our help

Some ask: Didn´t I really participate somehow in Christ´s salvation?  The answer is: No! God's plan of salvation is entirely His own work. No human being is involved in it. Even if many people have the desire to be part of it. They would like to be at eye level with God. Something as between equal partners. And that of course is not possible. No human being is involved in his own redemption from guilt and sin.

Everything is completed, through Jesus alone. Even his closest disciples could not help. Peter and the others are no longer to be seen under the cross. Peter and his full-bodied words from faithfulness to death: turned out to be only wishful thinking. The calculation did not work out. In his prayer struggle in the Garden of Gethsemane, the disciples could not even stay awake. In deepest need Jesus has no human help. He carried everything alone. God wanted to accomplish salvation without human participation, so that no one could be proud of his help. That is why the redemption is also perfect. It is certain because it rests on Jesus alone. Human help would only have made Jesus' work of redemption questionable and shaky.

What do we have to do then?  Nothing! Just receive the gift of salvation through Jesus. We can let Him take us on the path to eternal life. That is grace! The self-righteous religious person in us must die. We are justified before God through the Lord Jesus Christ alone.

And finally: our third plus: It is complete - for our consolation

For us, everything is done. But I must allow Jesus, the physician, the Savior, to come into my heart. To my spiritual wounds. "You see the wounds, you heal the heart", they say in a song.

I can be healed. Jesus wants to heal me. Jesus is going to heal my past, heal my present. He is my future. Everything is safe in the hand of Jesus, the Savior.

He has accomplished everything so that he can return and come again. To fulfill our prayer, "Deliver us from evil." The future belongs to the trinity of God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit. The evil one will be disempowered.

“In this world you will have trouble”, Jesus tells his disciples (John 16:33). “But take heart! I have overcome the world.” With his death on the cross, Jesus Christ has also overcome the discord of this world. We wait for the coming of the Prince of Peace, the Lord Jesus Christ. We are counting on this promise! Therefore we praise God, our Father in heaven: Yours is the kingdom and the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen.