When Water Thirsted
John 19:28-30
Can water be thirsty?
Back in John 4 Jesus
was thirsty, and asked a woman at a well for some water.
He then told her that He could give her living water...the water
of life. She said, "Give me
this water." Jesus replied,
"I am."
He is the living
water, and yet He thirsted on that day, just like He did in our text.
ill.--one of my kids
recently said as he drank from a water bottle, "This tastes old."
I said, it is -- 6,000 years ago God created it and it has been
liquid, solid, and gas, sometimes salty, sometimes stinky.
It has been drank before, processed, flushed, and purified and
recycled, and now we pay up to $4 for a little bottle of what God
created for free. [They
choose soda now instead, but news flash, it has water in it!]
He who created all water
was able to walk on top of it and turn it into wine at will.
He's God, and yet He is thirsty!
Jesus was crucified at
9 o’clock in the morning, and He spent the first three hours on the
cross in the sunlight. He likely hadn't had anything to drink at that
point for more than 12 hours.
Then the darkness came for three hours, and at the end Jesus
cried out his fourth saying from the cross, "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" (Matthew 27:46).
Our Lord’s first three
statements were centered on others - His enemies [Father, forgive them],
the believing thief [today you will be with me in paradise], and John &
Mary [take care of each other]. His fourth statement, was about Himself
AND others, because He was forsaken when others' sins were laid on Him,
for their sake. He helped
others first, and did the job He was sent to do on the cross.
v. 28 'knowing' -- Certainly he
knew He was thirsty before this moment, but He laid aside His own desire
for the sake of others until the job was finished! [Mark 15:23, He
turned down a drink before the cross.]
But His last three
statements from the cross were solely focused on Himself: His body - "I
thirst" (John 19:28); His soul - "It is finished" (v. 30; Isaiah 53:10);
and His spirit - "Father, into Thy hands, I commit my spirit" (Luke
23:46). Body, soul & spirit - all were offered by the Lord Jesus Christ
in obedience to the Father.
The shortest of these
statements that our Lord made from the cross is the one found in John
19:28, "I thirst." In the original text, it is one word with just four
letters. It is the only statement in which our Lord referred to His body
and His physical suffering. This simple word, however, tells us three
important things about our Savior.
1. Jesus Is A Sympathetic Savior.
While Jesus was
divine, He was also human. Because He walked upon this earth as a man He
became very much acquainted with the difficulties of life here below.
When He was a child, He probably skinned His knee a time or two. As a
teenager, it is likely that He knew what it was like to not be part of
the "in" crowd. Learning the carpenter’s trade in His father’s shop, He
likely had a splinter or two, and He also could very well have smashed
His thumb on occasion with a hammer. [did not curse!
Neither do I, but when I hit my thumb if you'd write it down I'd
sign at the bottom!]
As a man, He knew what it
was to grow tired, to be cold, to sweat, to be hungry, and, of course,
He knew what it was like to be thirsty.
During an airline
flight, concern over the heavy turbulence mounted as people were thrown
about in their seats and bags began to fall from the overheads, until
the soothing voice of the pilot came over the intercom: “No need to
worry, folks,” he said, “These bumps are made of air!”
We may wish the bumps we
face in life were made of air, but they are not. Life throws us around;
adversities are real. Physical trials sting. Emotional troubles drop
unresolved baggage into our laps. Spiritual difficulties let the air out
of our souls.
Jesus felt the "bumps"
as He lived here among men. Because this is so, we know that He
understands where we are and what we are going through in this life.
Hebrews 4:15
15 For we have not an high priest
which cannot be touched with the feeling of our infirmities; but was in
all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.
One of Denmark’s leading sculptors had a
burning ambition to create the greatest statue of Jesus ever made. He
began by shaping a clay model of a triumphant, regal figure. The head
was thrown back and the arms were upraised in a gesture of great
majesty. It was his conception of Christ the King: Strong, Dominant.
"This is my masterpiece," he said, on the day it was completed. But,
during the night a heavy fog rolled into the area and sea-spray seeped
through a partially opened window of the artist’s studio. The moisture
affected the shape of the model so that when the artist returned in the
morning, he was shocked to find a wounded figure. The droplets of
moisture that had formed on the statue created the illusion of bleeding.
The head had drooped. The facial expression had been transformed from
triumph to compassion. And the arms had dropped into an attitude of
welcome. The artist stared at the figure, agonizing over the time wasted
and the need to begin all over again. But something came over him which
changed his mood. He began to see that this image of Christ was the true
one. Then he wrote at the base of the newly-shaped figure its official
title: "Come unto Me!"
Jesus is a sympathetic
Savior, who wants to take you in His arms and love you today! He
thirsted just like you do.
2. Jesus Is A Scriptural Savior.
In saying "I thirst,"
Jesus fulfilled some prophecies.
Psalm 69:21
They gave me also gall for my
meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.
v. 29
'Hyssop' = was used on Passover to apply the blood!
Psalm 22:15
My strength is dried up like a
potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me
into the dust of death.
Here is the strongest
evidence that Jesus can do what He has promised in YOUR life:
He fulfilled what was foretold about HIS life.
There are in the Old
Testament over 300 distinct predictions which were literally fulfilled
in Christ.
Some object to the
assertion that prophecies fulfilled by the life of Christ are evidence
of His being Who He claimed to be - the Son of God and the only Savior
of men. These objections primarily fall into two categories:
a. Fulfilled Prophecy
In Jesus Was Deliberate.
That is, Jesus sought
to make Himself the Messiah by deliberately seeing to it that His life
fulfilled Old Testament prophecies. It was all a "set up."
The problem with this
objection, however, is that many of the prophecies concerning the
Messiah were totally beyond the human control of Jesus Christ, such as:
1. The place of His
birth - Micah 5:2
2. The time of His
birth - Daniel 9:25; Genesis 49:10
3. The manner of His
birth - Isaiah 7:14
4. The manner of His
death - Psalm 22:16
b. Fulfilled Prophecy
In Jesus Was Coincidental.
Professor Peter
Stoner, in his book, SCIENCE SPEAKS, demonstrates how coincidence is
ruled out by the science of probability. Stoner says that by using the
science of probability in reference to only eight Old Testament
prophecies, we find that the probability that any man might have lived
down to the present time and fulfilled eight of the 300+ Old Testament
prophecies concerning the Messiah, is 1 in 100,000,000,000,000,000 (10
to the 17th power)!
Suppose that we take
10 [to the 17th] silver dollars and lay them on the face of Texas. Do you know what would happen?
The government would seize it!
Actually, they would cover
all of the state about two feet deep. Now mark one of these silver
dollars and stir the whole mass thoroughly, all over the state.
Blindfold a man and tell him that he can travel as far as he wishes, but
he must pick up one silver dollar and say that this is the right one.
What chance would he have of getting the right one?
Just the same chance that
the prophets would have had of writing these eight prophecies and having
them all come true in any one person.
What about 300+ prophecies?
It's incalculable!
And even if we had a number that big to estimate the chances, God
reached down and removed that one silver dollar when He raised His son
from the dead on the third day!
Jesus is a Scriptural Savior!
Because this is so,
you can rely on it: just as surely as He fulfilled what was foretold
about His life, Jesus can do what He promised in your life!
3. Jesus Is A Sufficient Savior.
Jesus was thirsty
because of the physical agony He was experiencing. But I remind you that
He had just come through three hours of darkness during which He had the
sins of the world poured out upon Him. He had just finished paying the
price for our sins through spiritual suffering. During those three
hours, He was abandoned by the Father, and thus, experienced Hell for us
so that we wouldn’t have to.
He was dried up, just as the OT burnt offering was totally consumed.
He endured God's fiery wrath, so He thirsted both physically and
spiritually.
You see, Hell is a
place of thirst. In Luke 16, our Lord told about a man who died and woke
up in torment in hell. There, he begged for someone to "dip the tip of
his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this
flame" (Luke 16:24). People who are in Hell today are saying, "I
thirst." Hell is a place of eternal thirst. Those who are condemned to
suffer there for eternity will forever thirst, not only physically, but
emotionally and spiritually.
There is no thirst in
heaven. Why? Because God's
justice was quenched!
Revelation 7:16
They
shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more;
Revelation 22:17
[last invitation in the Bible]
And the Spirit and the bride say,
Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst
come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.
Are you thirsty for
God?
Psalm 42:1-2
1 As the hart panteth after the
water brooks, so panteth my soul after thee, O God.
2 My soul thirsteth for God, for
the living God: when shall I come and appear before God?
Psalm
63:1
O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my
soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty
land, where no water is;
Isaiah 55:1
1 Ho, every one that thirsteth,
come ye to the waters...
The question is not,
"Do you thirst?" because all mankind has a thirst for reality, for
fulfillment, for satisfaction, a thirst for forgiveness, a thirst for
God. The real question is "How long are you going to thirst?" You can
continue to be lost and end up thirsting for all eternity, or you can
trust Jesus as your Savior and never thirst again.
John 4:14
But whosoever drinketh of the
water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I
shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into
everlasting life.
When Jesus died a
soldier put a spear into the side of his abdominal cavity, and out
flowed blood and ... water!
Death took the very last bit of water out of the 'water of life.'
Death thought it had won.
But on that day, for the first time ever, death met innocence.
Death met righteousness.
And death destroyed itself!
Swallowed up in victory, death was murdered with a kill shot
right between the eyes, on the day that the living water was thirsty!
[idea and partial outline from Dave
McFadden]
