"It is finished"

τετέλεσται (tetelestai)

This was Jesus' last word, spoken in Greek.

There are three different meanings to this one word.

1. Mission complete of redeeming us of our sins

2. Perfect tense: a past action with ongoing completed results. Meaning it is eternal, is contextually a cry of victory. The Greek word for the messengers, who ran with messages, were called εὐαγγέλιον, evangelions. This is the root of Gospel or good news. They usually came with messages of victory, when people were waiting on battle news. We call these people now evangelist.

What the Catholic church gets wrong, is that nothing we do will actually save us, and the narrow gate's Jesus-sized. Only through Him are we saved. We do good because that is Christ-like, it protects us from sin, and evangelizes other people. Because the best way to show the right thing is by example. And we're not supposed to add or take away from the message. It is finished.

3. This word was also written on top of Roman invoices, when somebody was done paying a debt in full, when the Romans occupied greek territory. The gospels were written in Greek. Debt for our sin.

When jesus cried that he was thirsty, hey was literally given a butt wipe sponge with wine and vinegar by a Roman soldier, and then τετέλεσται. I think it illustrates the point that no matter what he does, we're going to keep on sinning until we are all done and redeemed.

I just learned this today, and I thought that was really cool, and synergize this with the shroud of Turin.