21st March 2024
The last words of Jesus from the cross: …‘I am thirsty’
This is the fifth in a series of studies for the Easter Preparation season.
Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.
John 19:28-29 (NIVUK)
The day began with the inhumane scourging of Jesus by Roman soldiers. Jesus would have been stripped and tied to a low stone column, where he was whipped with an implement containing several strips of leather, each of which had pieces of bone, nails, fish hook like claws and glass sewn into it. According to Roman law there wasn’t a set number of stripes nor restrictions on which parts of the body it could be administered. Many were beaten to death; the rest were left in a bloody pulp.
Following this beating, Jesus was paraded through the streets, forced to carry the crossbeam of his cross, then had nails hammered into his wrists and ankles, and was then hoisted into position. His body must have writhed with pain as he struggled to breathe, when after about three hours of excruciating agony, he said he was thirsty.
Even at this point, Jesus was in control of what was taking place, as his words fulfilled what was written in Psalm 22:15 and Psalm 69:21. The wine vinegar he was given was not the narcotic mixture to deaden the pain he was offered and refused at the beginning of the crucifixion (Matthew 27:34). He didn’t want his senses dulled for what he needed to say from the cross, but now, after all he had been through, he was thirsty.
This was part of Jesus’s physical agony on the cross, demonstrating that he was fully human and not some gnostic spirit. Jesus was the incarnate Son of God, who was fully human as well as fully divine, and was enduring the agony of physical suffering on our behalf.
The ‘water of life’ drained himself dry for us. Jesus became physically thirsty for us so that we may never be spiritually thirsty again (John 4:10-14; 6:35), what a wonderful exchange. The ‘thirsty’ Saviour wants us to come to him, fill our cup, and receive eternal life.
Are you thirsty? Then, “The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22:17).
As we look at Jesus on the cross crying out ‘I am thirsty’, let’s recognise our own thirst and come to Jesus to have it quenched, all other places are broken cisterns.
Prayer
Loving Father, we thank you that in his thirst Jesus hears the cry of his thirsty people, and on the cross, Jesus meets us at the place of death and transforms it into a place of eternal life. In Jesus’s name, Amen.
Study by Barry Robinson
About the writer:
Barry Robinson is a minister in Grace Communion International and Regional Pastor for Southern England, the Midlands, and Wales
Local congregation:
Grace Communion West Hampstead
Sidings Community Centre
150 Brassey Road
West Hampstead
London
NW6 2BA
Meeting time:
Sunday 12.30 pm
Local congregational contact:
Gordon Brown
gordon.brown@gracecom.church
Word of Life contact:
wordoflife@gracecom.church