Admit Your Need ... "I
thirst"
John 19:28-29
The Apostle John is always carefully to show us that scripture is being fulfilled.
There are chapters in the Old Testament, which are especially concerned with the Crucifixion. I would list Psalm 22, Genesis 22, Isaiah 53, and Leviticus 16. There were twenty-eight prophecies fulfilled while our Lord Jesus was hanging on the Cross. “I thirst” is the fulfillment of Psalm 69:21.[i]
Psalms 69:21 Reproach hath broken my heart; and I am full of heaviness: and I looked for some to take pity, but there was none; and for comforters, but I found none. 21They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink. [ii]
Psalm 22:15 "My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth".
John 19:28-29 After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, "I thirst!" 29 Now a vessel full of sour wine was sitting there; and they filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.
John also is certain to remind us that on the cross the Lord is in control.
a. In John 10:18 Jesus said "No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord. I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again."
b. Those very significant words of Jesus mean that everything that happened to him on that first Good Friday-all of the….
Physical pain of the whippings,
The beatings,
The crown of thorns thrust into his head,
The nails driven into his hands and his feet;
All of the emotional pain of being mocked and spat upon;
All of the spiritual pain that Jesus endured when his father turned his face away from him as he took upon himself the sins of the world-
All of it was voluntarily accepted and voluntarily endured by Jesus Christ for the glory of his heavenly father and for the eternal well-being of his people.
c. Nothing that happened to Jesus that day caught him by surprise. None of it was unforeseen. All of it was anticipated and taken into account by Jesus when he made that fateful prayer in Gethsemane "Not my will but yours be done" (Luke 22:42).
d. The picture we see of Jesus in the gospel accounts of his passion is not one of a person who valiantly yet somewhat bewilderedly is confronting unforeseen circumstances that are beyond his control.
e. No the picture is one of complete control. Jesus is in total command of every aspect of the situation. That is true throughout the entirety of Jesus' passion-during his arrest, his appearance for "questioning" before the Jewish authorities and before Pilate, during the brutal treatment he received from the soldiers, while he hung on the cross in agony.
f. Jesus Christ was not a helpless victim; no he was the almighty, sovereign Son of God voluntarily submitting himself to humiliation and suffering, laying down his life of his own accord.
g. "Later, knowing that all was now completed and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said 'I thirst'" The picture again one of Jesus in complete command, consciously fulfilling the program, the agenda that the Father had set out for him.
h. The whole scene is one of total devotion and commitment to the Father's program for his life and total command of the situation.
1. THE DRINKS
At Calvary, Jesus was offered two drinks. The first He refused. The second He requested.
A. The first came just after 9:00 A.M.
"And when they were come unto a place called Golgotha, that is to say, a place of a skull, 34They gave him vinegar to drink mingled with gall: and when he had tasted thereof, he would not drink. 35And they crucified him, and parted his garments, casting lots: that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet,[1]" (Mt. 27:33-35).
The Romans first offered Jesus sweet wine mixed with gall. "Gall" was poisonous liver bile. It was mixed with sweet wine and given to deaden the pain of dying. When they offered it to Jesus, He refused it. He was unwilling to dull the pain with narcotics or poison. He would faithfully and fully endure the pain.
B. The second came just before 3:00 P.M.
1. Late in the afternoon, Jesus requested a drink…for Jesus said, "I thirst" and the Roman soldiers gave Him a drink of sour vinegar-wine mixed with water.
2. The Roman soldiers who came from Italy to Israel's hot climate realized how sick they could get drinking the water. Jerusalem's water contained bacteria that could make them violently ill, so the soldiers mixed sour wine with local well water.
3. "Sour wine" was wine that had passed its time and had turned into vinegar. The soldiers put it in the water hoping to kill the bacteria. This water and vinegar-wine mixture was a sort of first century Gatorade.
4. The soldiers on duty that Friday took along this drink for themselves because they expected to sit in the hot sun at Calvary until their duty was complete. That afternoon when Jesus called, "I thirst," they took a 24-inch hyssop branch and dipped a sponge in the vinegar-wine water then lifted it too His lips. This small act of kindness refreshed Jesus' thirst.
2. THE MEANING
These words at first may appear to be the least of all the “cross words”, but least they are not, as they speak to what was transpiring on the Cross.
A. This account pictures one of very intense physical suffering and agony. It is approaching the 9th hour (3:00 p.m.).
1. Jesus has been hanging on the cross for 6 hours (cf Mark 15:25,34).
2. The combination of Jesus' loss of blood, his exhaustion, his nervous tension and his exposure to the weather has generated a raging thirst.
3. Jesus' cry "I thirst" was not a polite and quiet request for a glass of water. No, it was a cry of agony.
4. Jesus' thirst while hanging on the cross in our place showed the reality and intensity of his physical suffering. His thirst consummated his physical suffering and thus enabled Jesus to know that all was now completed.
5. And so, in order that the Scripture might be fulfilled he cried out "I thirst" asking for and then receiving a drink of wine vinegar from a sponge held up to his mouth on a stalk of hyssop.
B. But in spite of the reality and intensity and significance of Jesus' physical thirst, I am convinced that something deeper is being expressed by this 5th word.
1. Underlying his physical thirst is another kind of thirst that Jesus experienced in a deeper, more profound way on the cross--spiritual thirst.
2. Jesus was speaking about is a spiritual craving for God, a longing that operates deep within the heart of every human being created in the image of God, a thirst that Jesus and Jesus alone can satisfy for all eternity. According to John's gospel this universal spiritual thirst can be quenched and satisfied only by the Holy Spirit, whom Jesus promised to give to all who will believe in him, and who will give to the believer eternal life. And it is this kind of thirst, this spiritual thirst, that Jesus experienced on the cross.
3. We must be very clear as to what was really going on upon that cross. The man who hung there was no ordinary Galilean Rabbi. No he was the eternal Son of God. Jesus of Nazareth was the Word of God who became flesh. He had existed from all eternity in the closest, most intimate fellowship imaginable with the Father.
4. Even when he voluntarily left heaven's glory and emptied himself of all divine dignity and authority to become a man, he still maintained throughout his life sweet communion and deep intimacy with his heavenly father.
5. Until, that is, he hung on the cross. There, as he took upon himself the sins of all his people, Jesus Christ experienced, for the first time in all eternity, the horror of separation from God. The Father turned his back on the Son while he hung there on the cross, in our place, inflicting upon, the full fury of his wrath for our sins. We hear of the horrifying reality of this separation from Jesus' own lips "My God, My God, why have you forsaken me?" (Mark 15:34)
6. Jesus had known the joy of intimate fellowship with his father, and now during this time of separation, Jesus wanted it back; he longed for it; he thirsted after God. On the cross Jesus was the supreme fulfillment of Psalm 63:1 "O God, you are my God, earnestly I seek you; my soul thirsts for you, my body longs for you, in a dry and weary land where there is no water."
7. This then, at the deepest level, is the thirst Jesus experienced on the cross. He was physically thirsty to be sure. His physical thirst consummated his physical suffering. But his physical thirst was only the tip of the iceberg.
8. Jesus' deepest, most profound thirst was spiritual, thirsting after his father, from who he was separated as he hung on the cross paying the penalty for our sins. And so in conclusion let me stress the significance of this spiritual thirst of Jesus for our lives.
3. THE LESSON
Once all things (the work of atonement) had been accomplished, with nothing more to be done … Jesus cried out in thirst for the intimacy He once had with the Father.
His cry is our cry … for intimacy with God the Father.
SUBSTITUTE REFRESHMENT: The world often meets our thirst by offering us vinegar. Every day people cry, "I Thirst!" What they need is the water of life. But instead the world offers poor substitutes. Instead of the love of God the world offers shallow relationships. People need compassion, and the world offers us a 900 number where someone will show us compassion; for a price. People need a relationship with their heavenly Father, and the world offers astrologers and psychics.
DELAYED RECOGNITION: The rich man in hell cried out for a drip of water to be placed upon His tongue (Luke 16:24). He realized his thirst too late.
There is a warning in these simple and yet profound words … our thirst for the spiritual is found in Christ. Do you thirst for God?
Psalms 42:2a My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
Conclusion:
Jesus earlier in His ministry spoke … "If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink.” (John 7:37)