“I’m thirsty!”
How many times have we heard that? Children run in after playing outside, “I’m thirsty!” Athletes run off the field after a hard-fought game; “I’m thirsty,” they say to the trainers. Runners approach the halfway mark of a marathon, thankful for the watering station set up there, because they are thirsty. Riddled by infection or disease, people enter hospitals dehydrated, their tongues swollen, making speech difficult, yet they can often eek out those words, “I’m thirsty.”
We are talking about a basic need here. So basic, in fact, that we often don’t even think about it. If we ourselves feel thirsty, we step into the kitchen, grab a glass and fill it up with water. It’s almost like breathing; we don’t think about it, we just do it. If we are thirsty, we get something to drink. It’s part of our make-up; absolutely essential to our life. We can go for weeks without food, but we can only go a matter of days without something to drink.
“I’m thirsty.” One of Jesus’ last words in his final moments. And like all of those final words Jesus spoke on the cross, this simple statement carries far more meaning than we might imagine at first. So today, we continue our look at Jesus’ last words on the cross, and the significance of those words for our lives.
Do you all remember Jesus’ first miracle? We actually reflected on it in a sermon not too long ago. Jesus, his mother, and some of the disciples were at a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the wine ran out. So Jesus took jars full of water and turned it into fine wine, the finest any of the wedding guests had ever tasted. That was Jesus’ first miracle in his public ministry. Now we come to the end of Jesus’ public ministry; the end of his life. And as he hangs on the cross; mocked, beaten, exhausted, thirsty, he is offered sour wine; the cheapest stuff out there. It’s more than ironic, really. And John wants us to make that connection. John wants us to understand that Jesus was fully human; that he suffered in the same way that we suffer. He thirsted in the same way that we thirst. John is the only gospel writer to tell us that Jesus expressed his thirst as he hung on the cross, and he tells us so that we can connect to Jesus as a fellow human being.
And here’s the thing; Jesus wanted us to connect with him in that way. Jesus wanted us to understand that he took upon himself our very suffering. You see, as Jesus was led to his crucifixion, he had opportunities to alleviate his thirst and lessen his suffering. Mark’s gospel tells us that as Jesus was brought to the place called Golgotha (which means the place of a skull), he was offered wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And Matthew makes the same report, except to say that the wine offered to Jesus was mixed with gall. And when Jesus tasted it, he would not drink it.
Now, history tells us that myrrh and gall were ways of speaking of poisons that were thought to deaden pain or even expedite death. It was not uncommon for people sympathetic to those being crucified to make such offers; otherwise, the person could suffer for days upon the cross. Yet notice that Jesus, upon tasting the wine mixed with gall, refused to drink it. He had the opportunity to take this poisoned drink that would deaden his pain and expedite his death and he refused it. Why would Jesus do that?
As Jesus was crucified, he was intentionally choosing to suffer. He was choosing the suffering of humanity. And Jesus’ suffering communicated both God’s pain at the brokenness and sinfulness of the human race, and the high cost of our redemption. Jesus’ suffering enabled him to identify with the suffering that we human beings face at times in our own lives. He would face all the evil that humanity had to offer and the despair we sometimes feel without any sort of anesthesia. He would suffer for as long as it took him to die. He faced sin, evil, despair, and death head-on. This was his mission, his purpose. He did not seek the easier way out. He died the horrible death of crucifixion because he wanted to fully identify with the suffering we experience as human beings and to show us the costliness of our sin and God’s grace.
How many of us ever make such choices? How many of us have ever chosen to take the hard road? We live in a day when most of us tend to prefer the easy way out. That’s what the latest technological revolution is all about! We drive through drive-thrus instead of walking in to the restaurant. E-mails now far outpace handwritten notes. We send birthday wishes via Facebook. If we feel bad, we take a Tylenol. If things aren’t going well, we look for a quick fix; whether it has to do with our marriage, our physical body, or our job. We like to take the comfortable way; we want to minimize pain and to avoid the way that requires sacrifice, or inconvenient.
Jesus didn’t take the easy way, though. Jesus took the uncomfortable way, the inconvenient way, the way most of us don’t want to go. Jesus refused the offer of wine earlier because he knew it would alleviate his suffering, but it would also diminish his mission. And that’s what John wants us to understand as he recounts to us these final words of Jesus on the cross, “I am thirsty.” Christ was human. Christ suffered for our sakes, and he didn’t take the easy way out. In doing this, he also invited us to take the difficult path at times in our own lives. That’s what Jesus meant when he said, “If any would be my disciples, they must deny themselves.” Self-denial is something we’re not very good at. And yet, as Jesus so clearly showed us on the cross, self-denial and suffering can be redemptive.
Several years ago, I joined with many others and took a mission trip to the Gulf Coast to assist with Hurricane Katrina relief. We were sent to Pascagoula, Mississippi. We could’ve stayed in a hotel in the area and easily traveled out to the worst of the destruction zone to muck out the homes of the people staying there. But the team I was with chose not to do that. Instead, we slept on the floor of First United Methodist Church of Pascagoula. Some of the people on our team were D.C. professionals—they were used to staying five-star hotels when they traveled, but they chose to sleep on air mattresses on the floor and to take showers in a portable trailer for a week. Why? Because they wanted to identify with the people of Pascagoula in their suffering. The team freely chose discomfort for the sake of those they came to help. The discomfort was a part of the gift and part of the expression of the love of God through them.
Jesus said, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” Then Jesus hung on the cross, denied any efforts to make his crucifixion easier, and suffered for us. And Jesus calls us to do the same. “It costs something to be a true Christian. Let that never be forgotten,” says a former Anglican priest. “To be a lukewarm Christian, and go to church, is cheap and easy work. But to hear Christ’s voice, follow Christ, believe in Christ, and confess Christ, requires much self-denial. It will cost us our sins, our self-righteousness, our ease, and our worldliness. ALL must be given up. Our Lord Jesus Christ would have us thoroughly understand this. [As he hangs on the cross], he bids us count the cost.”
Indeed, Christ paid the ultimate price. He emptied himself fully. Do you remember all the times Jesus has talked about water in his ministry? He turned water into wine in his first miracle. He had a long discussion with the woman at the well in Samaria, teaching her about “living water,” and it was clear he had an abundant supply. Then he spoke of those who believed in him as never being hungry or thirsty, and he later connected to the “living water” that was available for anyone who came to him. They could satisfy their thirst forever by believing in him. Indeed, they would have “rivers of living water” springing up from within themselves.
So what does it mean that the one who offers living water was now himself thirsty? Can you now begin to feel the bleakness of this scene? It’s horrific—the thought of Jesus himself being thirsty! Had the water of life failed? Had the wine run out for good? He saved others; could he not save himself? As with the crown of thorns and the mocking purple robe, this, John is saying, is part of the truth of it all. This is Jesus emptying himself completely. This is Jesus paying the full price. This is how Jesus must do what only he can do. He must come to the place where everyone else is; the place of thirst, shame, and death. This is his glory and, yes, even his joy.
And the reason Jesus could come to this place…because he leaned upon his Father, God. We get the idea that, perhaps, when Jesus cried out that he was thirsty, it was more than just a need for hydration. He was also praying to God; he was speaking of his own inner thirst—his longing for God. Remember, Jesus teaches us, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Jesus knows that it is only when we thirst for God that we are truly satisfied. Even as he emptied himself totally on the cross, Christ knew that God would fill him again with life.
We so often choose the easy way out. We think things would be better if only we were in a different marriage or had a better job. We shun the people sleeping on the streets and yet tuck into a warm bed each night. We turn on the A/C when we’re hot, and the heater when we’re cold, and we’re never really all that uncomfortable. And yet, we’re never really fully satisfied either, are we? We still long and thirst for something more. As Christ hangs on the cross, he shows us the only way to satisfy that longing. Our task is to embrace the way of the cross. We have to long for God above all else; which may mean sacrifice and suffering rather than satisfaction and comfort. But the message of the cross, and the promise of the resurrection we will celebrate on Easter, is that if we are willing to follow in this same path that Jesus has taken, suffering and all, then we can experience the same new, satisfying, complete life of Jesus; a life without suffering, pain, longing; a life where no one ever has to say, “I am thirsty.”
Praise be to God. Amen.
