April 10
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’ 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 19:28-29.
Of the seven Words spoken from the cross, the fifth Word is the shortest. In the original Greek text, it consists of only four letters. Translated, the Savior said, “I thirst!” This cry from the cross directs our thoughts to Jesus’ humanity. He was indeed both the Son of God and the Son of Man. There is no indication in Scripture that from the time when Jesus was taken captive the previous evening at the gate of the Garden of Gethsemane until the time of this cry that Jesus was ever offered a refreshing drink of cold water. Neither was He offered any food.
By this time in the afternoon, He had hung on the cross through the heat of the day for at least six hours. Physically, mentally, and emotionally, how much could His body endure? We lack words to describe the torture and suffering that He had to endure from all of His wounds. The scourging, the crown of thorns, the beatings and the slapping, and the crucifixion all attributed to His intense physical suffering, and moved Him to cry out, “I thirst!”
Yes, the almighty Son of God who holds in His hands the waters of the earth, who “sends rain on the just and the unjust,” Matthew 5:45, was compelled in His anguish to cry out, “I thirst!” Jesus once told His disciples, “Whoever gives one of these little ones only a cup of cold water in the name of a disciple, assuredly, I say to you, he shall by no means lose his reward,” Matthew 10:42. He expects His followers to be people with compassion, but while hanging on the cross, He received no compassion.
In the text above, we are told that this cry from the cross, “I thirst!” was a fulfillment of Scripture. It directs us to the words of the Messianic Psalm 22: “I am poured out like water, and all My bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it has melted within Me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd and My tongue clings to My jaws,” Psalm 22:14-15.
After Jesus cried out, “I thirst!” we are told, “They filled a sponge with sour wine, put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth.” That, too, was a fulfillment of the word of the psalmist: “They also gave Me gall for My food, and for My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink,” Psalm 69:21.
In a spiritual sense, Jesus was thirsting also for our souls. With His thirst, He was also paying a price for our redemption, so that you and I and all sinners can flee to Him, the Fountain of Living Waters (Jeremiah 17:13) and the Water of Life (Revelation 21:6), for a spiritual drink of the forgiveness of sins. May Jesus’ thirst awaken in us a thirst for the proclamation of the Gospel: “Son, daughter, your sins are all forgiven!” “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin,” 1 John 1:7. Remember the words of Jesus to the woman of Samaria: “‘Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst. But the water that I shall give him will become in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life.’ The woman said to Him, ‘Sir, give me this water, that I may not thirst,’” John 4:14-15. With her, we say, “Lord, give me the Water of Life!”
“Jesus, in Thy thirst and pain,
While Thy wounds Thy life-blood drain,
Thirsting more, our love to gain;
Hear us, holy Jesus.
Thirst for us in mercy still,
All Thy holy work fulfill,
Satisfy Thy loving will;
Hear us, holy Jesus.
May we thirst Thy love to know,
Lead us in our sin and woe,
Where the healing waters flow;
Hear us, holy Jesus.” Amen.