Jesus’ death scene in John 19.28- 30 can be viewed with
complete justification as the inner goal of the Johannine story of Jesus. It is
not its end: Jesus’ death is not the last thing that is narrated about him; it
is followed by his removal from the cross and his burial and by the narratives
of Easter encounters in John 20 and in the final chapter, which was presumably
added later. The reality recognized in these encounters or the ‘perspective’
shaped by Easter is programmatically presupposed from the beginning in John:
“The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it” (1.5).
However, neither Easter morning and the encounter with Mary Magdalene (20.11-
18), nor the sending out of the disciples (20.21- 23), nor the high
christological confession of Thomas (20.28) is specified as the goal and
‘completion’ of the narrated way of Jesus but— paradoxically— his death. This
is where Jesus’ sending reaches ‘completion.’ The perfect τετέλεσται occurs
twice in these three verses (19.28- 30), first with the generalizing πάντα,
then repeated once more lapidarily: “Everything is completed.” To this can be
added the statement of the fulfillment of “the Scripture,” which— unlike in the
other fulfillment notices— is assimilated here, through the use of the verb
τελειόω, to the completion terminology in the context. Thus, the death scene
is characterized three times as completion within a very tight space.
Everything that was to come to completion through Jesus, in accordance with
Scripture and with the will of the Father who sent him (4.34), is completed
here. The work that has been entrusted to him (4.34; 17.4) is completed in his
death. (Jörg Frey, “The Death of Jesus in the Gospel of John,” in The Glory of
the Crucified One: Christology and Theology in the Gospel of John [trans.
Wayne
Coppins and Christoph Heilig; BMSEC: Baylor-Mohr Siebeck Studies in Early
Christianity; Waco, Tex.: Baylor University Press, 2018], 172)
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