‘I Thirst’ — Seven Sayings, Part Five
‘I thirst.’ — John 19:28
Why is Jesus thirsty? It’s pretty obvious. At this moment Jesus is hanging from a rough cut Roman cross in the scorching heat of the Near East midday sun. His back’s been lacerated and He’s losing blood. Being thirsty was part of the torture. Horrible though this reality is, there’s a deeper way of thinking about this question.
If we accept the Christian teaching that Jesus was the son of God, we are confronted with the claim that Jesus was the co-creator of the universe (John 1 v 1, Colossians 1 v 16). And as creator, Jesus also created water, that unique miracle liquid on which all of life depends. The eternal creator God is complete and has no need of water. So how can we make sense of Jesus’ thirst? It’s something that our life group has been wrestling with as we’ve been studying Nick Tucker’s book “12 Things God Can’t Do”, which I recommend if you don’t mind some hard thinking.
We need to remember that Jesus is God incarnate. Although He is the uncreated Son who existed before creation, He became human. He added a human nature to His divine nature and remained one person, but He now had two natures. He added human limitation to His unlimited divine nature. As a result He could become tired, and needed at times to ask for a drink of water, and as we read on, the immortal God could therefore die.
Most of us spend our lives trying to overcome our limitations through education, employment, health care or exercise, but not Jesus. He took on human limitation so He could fulfil His Father’s plan. This plan was for Jesus to be the Saviour of the world (1 John 4 v 1 4). When He said ‘I thirst’ He was also referring to a prophesy that the Messiah would suffer thirst (Psalm 69 v 21).
He knew the circumstances surrounding His death were predicted long ago in detail and that His suffering was not some random accident of history. In v 28 John uses a very deliberate Greek word that we translate ‘fulfil.’ In saying He was thirsty Jesus was consciously fulfilling the final prophesy before He died, and showing He was in control.
As Jesus is human, we have a Saviour who understands our suffering. In Hebrews He is described as a ‘great high priest’ because He bridges the human and divine worlds and understands both. We live in a fallen world and even if we lead godly lives and are spared some of sin’s pain, we still suffer. Until Christ returns we shall all continue to experience suffering in some way or other. Jesus’ cry ‘I thirst’ shows His suffering was real and that He accepted God’s purpose in it. We know Christ’s suffering soon reached its end. There are no quick and glib answers to suffering for anyone, but we also know Christ’s death and resurrection paved the way for an end to our suffering and even the suffering of the world (Romans 8 v 19).
