I Thirst

Lenten Midweek 4
St. John's Lutheran Church, Alexandria, VA
John 19:28-29

CrossWords: “I Thirst”
adapted from the Concordia Seminary Press Lenten series by Dr. David Peter

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29 ESV)

“I thirst,” Jesus says. But that doesn’t seem to be a detail that measures up to the importance of those other times Jesus spoke from the cross. We’ve heard him say several things up to this point in as we have listened at the cross this Lent. He forgave those who were in the very act of crucifying him, along with all those who made this execution come to be. He gave hope and assurance to the penitent thief that he, too, would enter God’s grace in paradise. He demonstrated his compassion for his mother and his friend so that neither of them would be left abandoned. He cried out, though, as he experienced abandonment, calling to his Father in his anguish. But now, Jesus speaks again, saying, “I thirst.” Why does John even record this detail?

I’ve been thirsty. You’ve been thirsty. On a hot day when you’ve been outside for a while, a nice, cool glass of lemonade – even just water – can sound pretty good. It’s all you can do to keep yourself from downing your drink in a big gulp once you finally get it. It’s normal to be thirsty. You’ve got to stay hydrated to keep going, especially when you’ve had a tough day. That’s the human condition.

Jesus had the toughest day imaginable. Hanging on the cross now for about six hours, it has probably been around 20 hours since the last time he’d had anything to drink. I find it hard to imagine going for more than a few hours during the day without having at least some water! So between the heat of the day and the blood he’s lost from the scourging, beating, and crucifixion, you can see why Jesus would be thirsty. That’s the human condition. And Jesus is very much human.

It’s possible that you might forget Jesus is 100% human and 100% God. That’s been a problem since the early days of the Church. There were even leaders who put forward the false teaching that Jesus was just “God in a human suit,” not really human like we are. That’s part of why we confess Jesus’ human identity in the creeds that express our faith as Christians. As you look up and listen to Jesus’ words from the cross, his “CrossWords,” remember that he is human, like us, because he needs to be. God had to become human in order to save humans.

Jesus is God for you. He is your human brother who went to the suffering of the cross so that you would not. On the cross, he experienced the pain and anguish that our sins have earned us. He knew physical suffering in our place. When you look to the cross, know that a part of you is up there, too. Your sin, your brokenness, your desire that your will rather than God’s will be done: all that is up on the cross.

Jesus is God for you. He is the man who bridges the divide between the holy God and our humanity broken by sin, because he embodies both. He’s not God pretending to be human or a man pretending to be God. As we heard this past weekend in the account of Jesus healing the man born blind, you can look to Jesus and see God. God is not unknowable or alien for you, for he has made himself known in the flesh-and-blood person of Jesus of Nazareth.

“I thirst,” Jesus says. And while his physical thirst would have been profound, there was something else that he was missing up on the cross. He was being deprived of the presence of his Father. Jesus experienced spiritual suffering along with the physical. Think back to Jesus’ parable of the rich man and Lazarus. After the rich man and Lazarus had both died, the rich man looked up and saw Lazarus with Abraham far off in heaven. “[He] called out, ‘Father Abraham, have mercy on me, and send Lazarus to dip the end of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am in anguish in this flame.’” (Luke 16:24) Last week, we heard of God the Father’s abandonment of His Son as Jesus carried our sin. Jesus experienced hell on the cross for you and me; Jesus took our place in hell. On the cross, cast off from his Father in heaven, Jesus thirsts after God.

In response to his anguished word of thirst, someone there at the crucifixion gave Jesus something to drink, a sponge soaked in sour wine, offered up on a stalk of hyssop. The sour wine was a cheap drink that the Roman soldiers had with them, more vinegar than wine. It would have been painful to consume for someone in deep thirst: drinking it prolonged both Jesus’ life and his agony. The hyssop plant pops up in various passages of the Old Testament. Hyssop was also used for cleansing rites, and its sprigs were ideally suited for sprinkling Bunches of hyssop served as a “paintbrush” for the Hebrew people on the night of the Passover as they marked their doorposts with the sign of the blood of the Passover lamb (Exodus 12:22). And now, as darkness has covered the land as it once did in Egypt in the penultimate plague, hyssop touches the Lamb of God who is being sacrificed so that the people – all people – might live. Jesus was the sacrifice that God provided for our need.

We read part of Psalm 69 in tonight’s service, a psalm that looked ahead to Jesus. It was part of the scripture that Jesus fulfilled in his life and death: “and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.” (Psalm 69:21b) All that Jesus had done was to fulfill God’s promise to our broken world, given to our first parents in the Garden of Eden after our fall into sin. That was his mission: to keep God’s promise. Knowing that his mission was brought to completion, Jesus said, “I thirst,” and in taking the sour wine to drink, he fulfilled Scripture again.

Jesus is God, for you. You are why he was born as a human being, to be humanity’s connection with our holy Creator. You are why he lived and taught us about our Father in heaven and His love for us. You are why he went to the suffering of his Passion and his cross, to be the sacrifice for our sin and the fulfillment of God’s promise to save us. Jesus thirsted on the cross so that you and I need never thirst for God.

Jesus is God, for you.

Amen.