Thursday
Thursday
His Agony of Thirst
Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
John 19:28
At the time of his crucifixion Jesus was offered wine to drink mixed with gall, but after tasting it, he refused to drink it (Matt. 27:34), perhaps because he was determined to be in full possession of his senses while suffering for us on the cross. Hours later, however, on emerging from the godforsaken darkness, and knowing that the end was near, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” In response the bystanders soaked a sponge in wine vinegar (the Roman soldiers’ common drink) and lifted it on a stalk of hyssop to Jesus’s lips.
This is the only word from the cross that expressed Jesus’s physical pain. He spoke it, the evangelist added, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Indeed, it had been prophesied twice in the Psalms. In Psalm 22:15 it is written, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,” while in Psalm 69:21 we read, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that a literal physical thirst exhausts the significance of Jesus’s fifth cry from the cross. His thirst, like the darkness, was also surely figurative. If the darkness of the sky symbolized the darkness in which our sins enveloped Jesus, and if the death of his body was to symbolize his spiritual death, then his thirst symbolized the torment of separation from God. Darkness, death, and thirst. What are these but what the Bible calls hell—outer darkness, the second death, and the lake of fire—all expressing the horror of exclusion from God? This is what our Savior suffered for us on the cross.
Thirst is an especially poignant symbol, because Jesus had earlier said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). But he who slakes our thirst himself now experiences on the cross a ghastly thirst. He longs, like the rich man in the parable, that Lazarus will dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. Thus Jesus thirsted on the cross that we might never thirst again (Rev. 7:16).
For further reading: Luke 16:19–31