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Central Texas, we really know about thirst, especially in summer. If you’re outside working or exercising, it’s thirst that makes your lips and throat so dry; thirst that makes you crave relief; thirst that it seems like no amount of iced tea or Gatorade, or even water, can quench.
So, we can kind of relate to Jesus’s words from the cross tonight: “I thirst.” These are words of suffering. Out of the seven words of Jesus from the cross, this one is negative. So far, we’ve heard words of pardon, words of promise, words of compassion and faithfulness, but “I thirst” shows genuine human suffering because it comes from one of our five human senses. We can relate to that. We also get thirsty, and we even experience suffering when that thirst isn’t quenched for some time.
Jesus thirsts. How ironic that is because Jesus once helped quench the thirst at a wedding that had run out of wine, and he promised living water to a Samaritan woman at Jacob’s well—water, he said, that one can drink and never again be thirsty. In his teachings, Jesus said, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture says, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” So how ironic it is that the one who is living water suffers thirst.
But for Jesus, “I thirst” is a word of suffering that is met with relief—well, sort of. As it says in the reading, he was given sour wine to drink. Basically, that was wine back then that had over-fermented; it was the usual drink of Roman soldiers because it was common, really cheap, and it was handy to give it to Jesus because that’s probably all that they had. So really, this isn’t a cruel act on their part; again, this is probably all they had. They could have just sat there and laughed at him, watched him die, and passed the bottle among themselves, but you know, that would have been cruel. Instead, they gave some to him, maybe out of pity.
And as Roman soldiers go, these guys were probably somewhat failures on their own; otherwise, they wouldn’t have been on crucifixion duty that day. But there they were, executing a seemingly failed Jewish Messiah who was now suffering a terrible death. Perhaps there was some pity in these soldiers’ hearts—come on, give this guy a drink before he dies; it’s the least we can do for him. So they hoist up some of this wine on a sponge and put it to his thirsting, suffering, dying lips.
But Jesus’s thirst doesn’t come just from working or exercising on a hot Texas summer day; it’s much more than that. Jesus has been in mental and physical anguish for hours. Over about the past 12 hours, he’s been betrayed, arrested, falsely accused, and unfairly tried. He’s been tortured, beaten, whipped, and spit on. He’s had to carry his cross through the city streets. He got nailed to it, and now he’s hanging on it there. I guess we could say that Jesus was hung out to dry, and dry he is.
But Jesus’s thirst isn’t only from human physical suffering; he is suffering thirst because of our sins. The suffering and pain caused by our sins are all piled on him on that cross, causing more than just physical and mental anguish. This is deep suffering that he is enduring and that is causing him to thirst. Jesus suffers because on the cross he’s literally embodying all of human suffering, bearing in his own wounded flesh the suffering and sickness of all of humanity, including yours. Every sin that you’ve committed or are going to commit, Jesus is suffering on the cross for them, so he says, “I thirst.” Yeah, no kidding; this is more than just physical thirst. This is spiritual thirst that he’s suffering.
And besides physical thirst, we humans can also suffer spiritual thirst in a way because we live in the heat and the dryness of sin—other people’s sins against us and our sins against others. In the heat of life, our actions, our words, our thoughts can cause ourselves and others to suffer. Our words, our actions, our thoughts can leave others hanging out to dry. And those people that we sin against, those people we hurt, they may cry out, “I thirst,” craving relief and quenching from this suffering that we cause them, and we may even just ignore them, ignore their suffering, ignore their pain and their thirst, not even offering them some sort of cheap wine for it.
But our actions and our words can also cause our own souls to thirst. Sins that we do can make us dry, craving forgiveness. Like David says in Psalm 63: “You, God, are my God; I earnestly seek you; I thirst for you; my whole being longs for you.” In our sin—things that we do that hurt other people, things that we say that hurt them, things that we do that we know are wrong—maybe even terrible things that we do can cause us to thirst, and we crave forgiveness, and we want relief.
We don’t want some sort of cheap wine; we want something that’s really going to quench the thirst of our sin, and there is relief. There is quenching. In fact, that’s why Jesus is even on the cross—to bring that relief and quenching to you. He is suffering and thirsting on the cross to relieve your suffering and your thirst because of your sins. On the cross, Jesus is thirsty for your forgiveness, wanting to give it to you and for you, by faith, to receive it and be relieved and quenched of your sins.
On the cross, Jesus is saying to us, “Blessed are you who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for you will be satisfied.” And it’s there at the cross where it is satisfied. His thirst is our satisfaction, our quenching, our relief of the thirst of our sin. His thirst and suffering quench our lips that are just too dry to praise God, and our throats are too dry to confess faith in Him. Jesus’ suffering quenches the dryness of our sinful souls and brings living water to them.
It’s from the cross that Jesus fulfills his words that I read earlier. He said, “If anyone thirsts, let them come to me and drink; whoever believes in me, out of the heart will flow rivers of living water.” He says from the cross, “Come to me; come to the cross. Here is where I speak words of life to you—words of life even out of my suffering, and my thirsting, and my dying.” He says on the cross, “I don’t ignore your thirst.” He says, “That’s why I’m here—to relieve and quench the thirst of your sin.”
And Jesus continues to not ignore our sin, our thirst. He continues to give that relief and quenching in a very real way in the Lord’s Supper, where we receive not cheap wine; it’s more than that. In that bread and in that wine is Christ’s very body and blood—the very thing that suffered and died on the cross for the forgiveness of our sins. So blessed are you when you thirst because of your sins. Blessed because your thirst can be quenched. If you’re thirsting, dry, spent from your sins, and wanting that relief, that quenching of forgiveness, Jesus freely gives it. That’s why he was on the cross.
Yes, there is relief. He’s speaking from the cross words of life—words of quenching of your thirst. Yeah, there is relief for the thirst of your sin. It’s not from Gatorade or iced tea. Maybe we could call it Christ tea instead or Saviour Aid. That’s a bit of a joke, folks, okay? No, it’s water; it’s living water that Jesus promises and gives to quench the thirst of our sin.
Come to the cross where there is that living water, that forgiveness—where there are words of life that quench your spiritual thirst. Amen.
