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Very Human Words

Hardly has Jesus spoken those staggering words "“My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?” than He continues with those of our text this evening. These words recorded only by John explain just why it was that a bystander ran off to bring Jesus something to drink. The sixth and seventh words from the cross will be spoken almost immediately but now we must stop to consider these words: "I thirst".

Even as He was being offered something to relieve His thirst the bystanders turned once more to mock Him.

John spells it out clearly for us. The end is rapidly approaching – "all was now finished". He does not to tell us that as though everything was lost as a hopeless cause. No, everything is finished in the sense not of despair but of completion! The same word will shortly be found on Jesus' own lips.

It's almost over but not quite yet. The darkness may have lifted but still the suffering goes on.

·       What could be more natural at such a moment?

·       Here we have evidence of the real humanity of Jesus Christ:

Angels don't get thirsty

Phantoms or spirits don't thirst either

But what a thing for the Creator of the World to cry out!

·       Knowing such suffering as is the common lot of mankind Jesus is able to sympathize with us is our ills and troubles

·       But yet we won't be able to understand this cry properly unless we take into account some other factors. After all our verse does not consist uniquely of the words "I thirst".

·       How are we to understand it all? Did Jesus cry out IN ORDER TO fulfil Scripture or was Scripture merely fulfilled as He called out. Just how are we to understand the words of our text?

John is careful to underline the importance of this theme of the fulfilment of Scripture as Christ comes to the end of His life. See v.24 and v.28 the phrase "fulfil the Scripture" is used cf. vv.36-37 where the idea is repeated.

While others might be unwittingly serving to forward God's plan of salvation, the same cannot be said of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The Father's perfect plan of salvation was matched and accompanied by the Son's perfect, conscious obedience.

"All was now finished" and Jesus knew it! Everything had been accomplished or completed. And yet there did remain just one more act of obedience to be performed. One last prophecy remained that needed to be worked out before He could commit His spirit into the Father's hands. Some commentators even go so far as to suggest that Jesus was running through all the Messianic promises to make sure that nothing was left undone! What attention to detail! How concerned He was to obey His Father in everything and in doing so He accomplished our salvation!!

If what appears to us as a small relatively insignificant detail could be so important to our Lord at such a traumatic time for Him surely we should learn NOT to play fast and loose with God's Word the Bible!!

This will be Jesus' final act of active obedience that John will describe for us in his gospel. Scripture must be fulfilled and Jesus knew that too.

And so Jesus cries out specifically in order that Scripture might be fulfilled. The Scriptures spoke of the Messiah's thirst and so Jesus calls out "I thirst" in order that all might be fulfilled.

Now let's be clear about this. Jesus was not play-acting. He really was thirsty – after all He had been hanging for 6 hours on the cross by now. As He was about to be crucified some kind person in the crowd (or was it one of the soldiers?) had offered Him a drink of drugged wine.

Mk.15:23 "And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it."

What someone offered in kindness was in fact an anaesthetic. He declined it. He didn't want His senses to be in any way dulled as He consciously lay down His life for His people as their sin-bearer. And so He hadn't drunk.

But now, it was different.

He had hung and suffered and born the full judicial wrath of God against sin in His own body. The cup which had caused Him real anxiety in the garden as He contemplated the task that lay ahead, He had now largely drunk – only a few drops remain and then it would soon be over. The cup was a bitter one for Him to drink but it was the cup which His Father had given to drink and He was determined to fully comply with His Father's will.

Jesus suffered burning thirst until the work of saving His people was completed – only then did He turn to look to His own interests.

So because the Scripture speaks of this He cries out "I thirst".

Is your desire to do the will of God in any way similar?

If we are to consider a literal physical thirst then we are presented with these possibilities:

Ps.22:15 "my strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws;"

We read this Psalm last week and noticed just how clearly it spoke of the sufferings of a victim of crucifixion even though crucifixion was unknown at the time when the Psalm was written. Well, v.15 describes the effects of thirst in a dramatic way – the tongue sticks inside the mouth – either to the jaws or to the roof of the mouth as the NIV translates it.

But the reference to Ps.69:21seems more likely: "They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink."

As He hung on the cross a sponge was soaked in a vinegar/sour wine. This was a common drink that the Roman soldiers used to refresh themselves. It was a drink that would relieve His thirst but it would also serve to prolong life and thus prolong His sufferings.

If indeed this verse in Ps.69 is the Scripture to which John refers then it would mean that we read v.28 something like this:

"Jesus, knowing that all had now been accomplished, in order to fulfil [the] Scripture [which says "They…gave me vinegar for my thirst."] said: "I thirst".

But while not denying the very physical thirst that Jesus experienced are we forced to limit ourselves to merely a physical thirst as we seek to interpret Jesus' cry "I thirst"?

There is one other occasion in the gospels where Jesus declared that He was thirsty. In Jn.4 we read that Jesus had arrived in Samaria with His disciples. They left Him alone while they went off to find food in the town. And Jesus had an interview with a Samaritan woman. As a conversation opener He asks her to give Him a drink. Very quickly as the discussion develops Jesus makes it clear that He is not talking about ordinary water and ordinary thirst but of spiritual matters. The conversation has become an evangelistic one!

A few chapters later (ch.7) Jesus again is found speaking about "Living water". This time He is speaking publicly to the crowds in Jerusalem during the Feast of Booths/tabernacles. Once more He is not speaking about H₂O but about the Holy Spirit – thirst can be spiritual and not merely physical.

If we now consider the cry "I thirst" in its immediate context it follows immediately upon the cry of dereliction "My God, my God why have you forsaken me?"

And surely this can be understood as our Lord expressing His desire to once again enjoy the presence of His Father. All the more so as the Old Testament and in particular the Psalms describe a desire for God in terms of an ardent thirst.

Ps.42:1-2 "As a deer pants for flowing streams, so pants my soul for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?"

Or again:

Ps.63:1"O God, you are my God; earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."

Or even:

Ps.143:6 "I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land."

As one writer put it "A lively soul will be no less desirous of spiritual comfort from God than the body for natural food after long fasting."

That Jesus was longing to return to His Father is clear from the opening words of His High Priestly prayer recorded for us in Jn.17:5 "And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed." That moment was now almost upon Him as He neared the end on the cross – what more understandable than to find Him expressing His desire for His Father?

And what of our own desire for God? Do we know anything at all of such a desire?

What should our response to all this be?

Well, as we contemplate our Lord in His sufferings we should be reassured that He is totally worthy and deserving of our faith and trust. He was faithful and obedient to the end. He left nothing undone that should have been done. And so we can have confidence in the salvation He offers us.

We find too that He is a fully human Saviour who can understand our woes and our sorrows being no stranger to suffering Himself. At the same time He is fully divine and so well able to help us.

Our response as we hear Him crying out "I thirst" should be with a similar cry. Earlier in His ministry He had taught His disciples what we call the Beatitudes on the Sermon on the Mount. There He declared:

Mt.5:6 "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied."

We are not to imagine that this means we must struggle to attain a righteousness that we have made  for ourselves by our own efforts. No, we are to desire Him and to place our trust in His and in His perfect righteousness. As He grants us His righteousness that we receive by faith then He continues to transform us by the work of His Holy Spirit.

Let us so hunger and thirst that our lives be transformed and the praise and honour be given to Him and to Him alone.

Amen.

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