It is finished.

Over. Done. No chance to change anything, to tweak something, to do it over.

I like those words. It's nice to have finished projects, well-written papers turned in, and a pile of clean dishes rather than a sink of unwashed dishes.

But those three words, while I love them when I get to say them, are a bit harder to deal with when they come from Jesus.

Because when Jesus says those three words from atop a cross, I am no longer in control. I no longer get to say what my life will look like, and I don't get to choose the easy way out anymore. Those three words, spoken more than 1,800 years before I was born, shape my entire life.

Those three words change everything.

Yesterday was Good Friday--the day that Christians mark the death and burial of Jesus. If you read any of the gospel accounts of what happened on that original Good Friday, then you'll know that it wasn't particularly good for Jesus. But Christians call it 'good' because the day that Jesus suffered and died is also the day that he told us "it is finished."

Sins? Gone. Death? Over. You? Loved beyond measure.

But they also make me nervous. There's no chance in those three words for me to make it up to Jesus, (as if I ever could anyway.) There is no me in that sentence at all. Those three words say to me "I've done everything for you. There is nothing more to do for your salvation. There are no brownie points to earn, no extra credit to be gained, no more love to seek out. It's finished."

This is the heart of the Christian faith--trust that when Jesus says "it is finished," he means it.

So today, we sit between Good Friday and Easter. We occupy that space where it is finished, but more is coming. It's the already and the not-yet. Because tomorrow, we learn that not only does Jesus finish what we could not do for ourselves, but he goes one step further.

Tomorrow, we learn that we have hope beyond anything we could possibly imagine.

Maundy Thursday - no excuses.

John 13:34 - "I give you a new commandment, that you love one another. Just as I have loved you, you also should love one another."

I never knew what Maundy Thursday was supposed to be. I'm pretty sure I never bothered to go to a Maundy Thursday service, unsure of what to expect. What in the world does "Maundy" even mean?

Google is a wonderful thing, because today I learned that in Middle English, the version of English commonly spoken a few centuries ago, the word maunde meant commandment. Thus, today is literally "Commandment Day." What commandment, you might ask?

"Love one another."

As we journey through Holy Week, we are meant to fix our eyes on Jesus as he journeys towards the cross. We spend our time looking at what Jesus does, where Jesus goes, and how Jesus lives as he (quite literally) walks to his death.

This is good. Don't stop doing that.

But Maundy Thursday is, at its roots, a day to think about how we interact with one another. We ought to take time to think about the implications in our day-to-day interactions of Jesus' last days. We are commanded, once again, even in the midst of conflict, heartache, confusion and fear, to love one another as Jesus loved his disciples.

Just let that sink in for a moment. Remember that Jesus spent three years teaching, correcting, eating with, and listening to his disciples. Remember that he washed the feet of the one who sent soldiers to arrest him in exchange for cash and even fed him at his table.

But that raises a brand-new question: what does that love look like for us?

For Pope Francis, "love one another" looks like celebrating the Maundy Thursday mass in a high-security juvenile prison outside of Rome, washing the feet of teenage inmates.

For some, "love one another" means standing outside of the Supreme Court building with signs supporting marriage equality.

For many pastors, "love one another" means sitting with the sick in hospitals, homes, and hospice houses. It means planning and tweaking and pouring that love into liturgy, songs, and sermons to edify and teach the people of God this week.

But for many, it means absolutely nothing. Nothing changes. We look at the cross, just like we did last year, and say "oh, how nice of Jesus to die so that I could really live." We might even shed a tear or two.  But still, we go home ignorant of the millions of unwashed feet, empty stomachs, and fearful hearts that fill the world. We still throw out our leftover food, never thinking that perhaps we ought to set a few more places at the table tomorrow and invite some strangers over for dinner. We still leave that extra bedroom empty, just in case someone eventually visits, while our childrens' classmates go 'home' to another new place and another new set of foster parents. We still buy our Hershey's chocolate and buy our Nike shoes, even though they were likely produced with child and/or slave labor. We still think "maybe when I'm less busy, I'll volunteer somewhere."

The world still revolves around me, my family, and my needs.

We don't often stop to ask what family really means, who we truly are, and what needs we really have.  Is family fundamentally biological? Is our identity in where we live, the things we do, and the roles we play?  Who gets to determine what 'normal' means?

After spending a week on the US/Mexico border learning first-hand what life looks like for undocumented immigrants (both in the US and those who were deported back to Mexico), one of my professors told our Systematic Theology class that "as people training for ministry, you have no excuse for ignorance."

I would argue that no Christian has an excuse for ignorance, because Christ commands us to "love one another, just as I have loved you."

Culture shock, restlessness, and movement.

Well, it finally happened. I hit the culture shock wall, and I freaked out a little. (Okay, I freaked out a lot.)  It's an odd sort of feeling to think that in the place where you look so much like everyone else, you feel least at home. I'm tall, white, blonde, a lifelong member of the RCA, I eat olliebollen, and I own wooden shoes. I should feel right at home in Holland, right?

Wrong.

I felt more at home in India than I do in Holland.

I see so many deeply embedded cultural assumptions in Holland, so many practices, that make me cringe--physically or mentally.  I see the RCA as a denomination continuing to walk in this circle of isolation, and I see immense disconnect from reality.

In short, the vision of human flourishing that's implicit in how the majority of west Michigan works is not a vision that I want to adopt. It's narrow, it's rigid, and it's crumbling. It stands on a foundation of similarity and conformity, not diversity and engagement.

And yet, I can't leave--at least not yet.  I have somewhere between a year and a half and three years before I graduate from Western, and the Spirit will not give me peace about going anywhere else. (Believe me, I. have. tried.)

So here I sit, in my ridiculously oversized apartment, wondering what's next.  I'll spend the summer in Holland, working at the library and visiting the beach often. The sun will help, I think. Hopefully, I'll learn to play nice with the RCA, even when I would rather scream and/or smack my colleagues upside the head with my hardcover Bible.

Perhaps I just need to take up kickboxing.

But as I sit here, there's also a restlessness in my soul. I want to travel, to engage the world that God loves so much--and the world that I've come to love. I want to go.

I've never wanted anything more than to sit among God's people in other cultures, other nations, and other languages, and learn from them what it means to "belong, body and soul, in life and in death, to [our] faithful savior--Jesus Christ." (Answer #1, Heidelberg Catechism)  And I know in my heart of hearts that I have so much to learn.

And so we have two competing impulses: to go and to stay. 

Perhaps I'll find a way to do both--after all, I've never been one to play by the rules.