The Death Of Jesus
THE DEATH OF JESUS
JOHN 19:23-30
Indecision, prejudice and indifference all played their part in putting Jesus to death, yet God was still fulfilling his loving plan for humanity.
To the soldiers Jesus is just another criminal to be dealt with, a political one with no very noticeable difference at the moment. So they carry on and collect the “benefits” of the job—the prisoner’s clothing. His tunic, the undergarment worn next to the body, was seamless and indivisible, like that of the high priest (Exodus 28:31f.; Leviticus 21:10): there is no point then in trying to tear that. “Let’s toss for it,” they say. And so the soldiers, no doubt thinking of their good or bad luck in being on this “job,” commit themselves further to chance by gambling for the tunic. But there is no chance in the ways of God. This was to fulfill the Scripture, and in what a remarkable way, through the operation of those who did not know what they were doing, was Psalm 22 fulfilled in the Passion!
If the cross creates a false fellowship of gamblers trying to gain from the victim and from each other, it creates also a true fellowship of believers. Not only is there a group representative of the church gathered around, but from the cross the word is spoken which puts Jesus’ mother and the “beloved disciple” into a new relationship with each other.
The mission of Jesus had been concerned with accomplishing the work which the Father had given him to do (4:34). Here he knows that it has been accomplished, fantastic as this must have seemed to those who stood by. So he cries out, “I thirst.” They come to meet his thirst on the physical level, so fulfilling the Scripture (Psalm 69:21). But his real thirst may be a spiritual one, for his Father (Psalm 42:2). He who offers the living water, so that men need never thirst again (4:13f.; 6:35), himself endures the agonies of thirst. He who offers the Spirit and life (7:39) gives up his own spirit in death. Salvation does come to us freely, but not cheaply. The last cry from the cross (19:30) was one of triumph, not of despair. He could die in peace. No one took his life. He gave it up freely, completing and perfecting his God-given mission.
Notes 19:24: some have contrasted the divisions (literally “tearings”) of the Jews (7:43; 9:16; 10:19) with the untorn tunic and have seen it to be symbolic of the unity of the church, but this seems rather remote. 19:25: the mother of Jesus had been dissociated from him in 2:4 because his hour had not yet come. Now it has come and she is associated with him. Our Christian witness is transformed when we can discern his time. 19:29: “hyssop” would not be a very suitable plant to hold up a wet sponge. A similar word means javelin: so NEB renders.
For meditation “The Cross is the blazing fire at which the flame of our love is kindled, but we have to get near enough to it for some of its sparks to fall on us” (Stott).