THE NATURE THAT DOESN’T CHANGE
--John 19:28-29
Jesus Christ is fully God and fully human. In His fifth word spoken from the cross we encounter the human nature of our Lord Jesus, God the Son. Other than the fact that He is the only perfect, sinless human being who ever lived, Jesus is in every way just like us. Hebrews 4:15 affirms: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin.”
I drink a lot: Diet Pepsi, PowerAde, iced tea, coffee. I know that nothing can quench my thirst on a hot, humid, Illinois day when my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth as does a glass of cold, refreshing, water. Physical thirst is a daily reality in the lands of the Bible.
Jesus, being fully human like you and me, often experienced physical thirst. We recall His encounter with the Woman at the Well in John 4: “So he came to a Samaritan city called Sychar, near the plot of ground that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired out by his journey, was sitting by the well. It was about noon.
“A Samaritan woman came to draw water, and Jesus said to her, ‘Give me a drink.’" Jesus was physically thirsty, and asked the woman for a drink.
On the Cross that thirst became excruciating. Cicero called crucifixion, “the cruelest and most hideous punishment possible” (In Verrem 5.54.165). Not only did Jesus suffer thirst, He also endured dizziness, cramping, starvation, sleeplessness, traumatic fever, tetanus, and the suffering of untended wounds.
The gruesome death Jesus endured is unimaginable, but Dr. C. Truman Davis paints a pretty vivid picture of it for us from a medical point of view. I want to share it in detail including His preliminary flogging. The Jews limited flogging to forty stripes; the Romans set no limitation. The Roman whip was made of leather with pieces of bone and lead. Dr. Davis describes Jesus’ suffering and agony:
“The heavy whip is brought down with full force again and again across Jesus’ shoulders, back, and legs. At first the heavy tongs cut through the skin only. Then, as the blows continue, they cut deeper in the subcutaneous tissues, first producing oozing of blood from the capillaries and veins of the skin, and finally spurting arterial bleeding from vessels in the underlying muscles. . .Finally, the skin of the back is hanging in long ribbons and the entire area is an unrecognizable mass of torn, bleeding tissue.”
“When they reach Calvary’s summit, “Jesus is quickly thrown backward with his shoulders against the wood (of the cross). The legionnaire feels for the depression at the front of the wrist. He drives a heavy, square, wrought-iron nail through the wrist and deep into the wood. Quickly he moves to the other side and repeats the action, being careful not to pull the arms too tightly, but to allow some flexion and movement. The cross is then lifted into place.
“The left foot is pressed backward against the right foot, and with both feet extended, toes down, a nail is driven through the arch of each, leaving the knees moderately flexed. The victim is now crucified. As He slowly sags down with more weight on the nails in the wrists, excruciating, fiery pain shoots along the fingers and up the arms to explode in the brain—the nails in the wrists are putting pressure on the median nerves. As He pushes Himself upward to avoid this stretching torment, He places the full weight on the nail through His feet. Again He feels the searing agony of the nail tearing through the nerves between the metatarsal bones of the feet.
“At this point, another phenomenon occurs. As the arms fatigue, cramps sweep through the muscles, knotting them in deep, relentless, throbbing pain. With these cramps comes the inability to push Himself upward to breathe. . . .Air can be drawn into the lungs but not exhaled. Jesus fights to raise Himself in order to get even one small breath. Finally, carbon dioxide builds up in the lungs and in the blood stream, and the cramps partially subside. Spasmodically He is able to push Himself upward to exhale and bring in life-giving oxygen.
“Hours of this limitless pain, cycles of twisting, joint-rending cramps, intermittent partial asphyxiation, searing pain as tissue is torn from His lacerated back as He moves up and down against the rough timber. Then another agony begins, a deep, crushing pain deep in the chest as the pericardium slowly fills with serum and begins to compress the heart.
“It is now almost over—the loss of tissue fluids reached a critical level—the compressed heart is struggling to pump, heavy, thick, sluggish blood into the tissues—the tortured lungs are making a frantic effort to gasp in small gulps of air. . . .The body of Jesus is now in extremis, and He can feel the chill of death creeping through His tissues. . . .His mission of atonement has been completed. Finally He can allow His body to die” [C. Truman Davis, “The Crucifixion of Jesus: The Passion of Christ from a Medical Point of View,” Arizona Medicine 22, no. 3 (March 1965): 185-7].
Can you picture a more horrific death than that of our Lord Jesus Christ? God the Son truly knows what human pain and suffering are all about, not only in a spiritual sense but physically and emotionally as well. Truly the prophecy of Isaiah 53:4 is fulfilled at Calvary:
“Surely He has borne our grieves
And carried our sorrows. . .”
Not only did Jesus suffer the grief and sorrow of being “forsaken" by God the Father as
He died for your sin and mine, He fully understands all the grieves and sorrows we
Experience throughout our lifetime. Jesus knows what suffering, sorrow, grief, and
pain are all about. Nobody else can understand and care for us more in all our times of hardship and sorrow.
When He was first nailed to the Cross, Jesus was offered a sedative drink to alleviate some of the pain. Mark tells us in his account: “And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh; but he did not take it.” [Mark 15:23]. Myrrh was one of the gifts the Wisemen brought to the infant Jesus. It serves many purposes, one of which is as an anesthetic to deaden pain. Jesus refused; He would be fully conscious until the end as He paid the penalty for your sin and mine, but as the end draws near, He is thirsty.
Physical thirst and spiritual thirst share common characteristics. Jesus suffered physical thirst on the Cross, but in a sense spiritual thirst as well. As He finished His perfect sacrifice for our sin, the heart of Jesus ached! He ached for you and me to receive His gift of salvation from sin. Isaiah 55:1 extends this gracious, personal invitation to each one of us:
Ho, everyone who thirsts,
come to the waters;
and you that have no money,
come, buy and eat!
Come, buy wine and milk
without money and without price.
Salvation from sin, eternal life, is a free gift for us, but it cost Jesus everything, His very life. He suffered physical thirst so that spiritually you and I would never thirst again. He still invites all today: “Ho, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters. . .”
Jesus assured the Woman at the Well, “If you knew the gift of God, and Who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked Him, and He would have given you living water” [--John 4:10]. In John 7 Jesus extended a similar invitation, “‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink. As the scripture has said, ‘Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.’ Now He said this about the Spirit, which believers in Him were to receive; for as yet there was no Spirit, because Jesus was not yet glorified” [--JOHN 7:37-39].
Those rivers of living water flow free from the Cross of Jesus at Calvary. Only God the Son who suffered the agony of physical thirst can quench the thirsting of our souls. He personally invites us to “ask Him to give us living water.” Anyone who is thirsty may come to Him, believe in Him, and drink from the river of living water. Only Jesus can satisfy our thirsty of souls.
Aqua is the word for water in many European languages. The great nineteenth century preacher Charles Haddon Spurgeon tells this story: “The sharp shrill cry of ‘Aqua! Aqua! Constantly pierces the ear of the wanderer in the towns of Italy. The man who gains your attention bears on his back a burden of water, and in his hand glasses to hold cooling liquid. Where fountains are few and the days are hot as an oven, he earns a livelihood and supplies a public need. The water-dealer is a poor man bent sideways by the weight of his daily burden. He is worn out in all but his voice! At your call he stops immediately, glad to drop his burden on the ground, and smiling in prospect of a customer. He washes a glass for us, fills it with sparkling water, receives payment with obvious gratitude, and trudges away across the square, crying still, “Aqua! Aqua!” [--Charles Haddon Spurgeon, The Quotable Spurgeon, (Wheaton: Harold Shaw Publishers, Inc., 1990)].
Jesus cried out from the Cross, “I thirst.” Today He calls out to all who are spiritually thirsty, “Aqua! Aqua!” Jesus alone can satisfy your eternal, spiritual thirst. If you only ask Him, He will give you living water. His gracious invitation today is , “Let anyone who is thirsty come to Me, and let the one who believes in Me drink. . . .” Reach out to Him in faith, and you will never thirst again.
