I Thrist
Introduction
Today as we continue to “survey the wondrous cross on which the Prince of Glory died…” we will see that Jesus’ suffering on Calvary included a lack of water…and physical thirst.
1. The agony of it (After this…)If this happened “after this” then what was “this?”
A. The personal shame – agony of soul
He was ridiculed by the world He came to save.
History reveals that most people were crucified nude.
They divided His outer garment and gambled for His inner…
The Jews said, “Cursed is he who dies on a tree.”
B. The physical suffering – agony of body
The word “excruciate” literally means “from the cross.” The Persians invented crucifixion but the Romans perfected it. The spikes were designed to strike the median nerve… Death came as a result of suffocation, blood loss, fluid build-up in the lungs, and heart failure (a ruptured heart).
Isaiah 52:14 – His appearance was marred more than any man. Until He had fulfilled his mission to be afflicted and suffer and shed His blood as an atonement for the sins and sorrows of all, the Savior of the World had no thought of Himself. He has prayed for the soldiers, the thief, and his mother. Only when His painful burden had been carried to its appointed conclusion, only when He had accomplished His mission, did He yield to the physical pain. He did so with simple words: “I thirst.”
C. The painful separation – agony of spirit
This agony began in Gethsemane. Luke 22:44 says Jesus was in “agony” in the garden. That unique word (used 1x only) means “to be in combat.” By putting time lines together, this follows the cry of Matthew 27:46, “My God, My God why have You forsaken Me?”
Matthew 27 says the Romans gave Him a scarlet robe and a crown of thorns.
Genesis 3 – thorns are a consequence of sin
Isaiah 1 – scarlet is symbolic of sin
What they meant as scoffing was actually symbolic.
II. The necessity of it (all things have been accomplished)
Accomplished = fulfilled, finished, completed, consummated
A. God’ s pleasure
Verse 18 says “they” crucified Jesus. Who were “they?” (more next week)
Isaiah 53:10 – ‘But the Lord was pleased to crush Him…”
Isaiah 53:4 – “He was smitten of God and afflicted…”
God’s righteous demands had been satisfied.
God became a man in the person of Jesus Christ.
He lived sinlessly and yet was crucified for the sins of mankind.
At Calvary, it pleased God to crush His only Son under the full weight of His righteous anger against sin.
He satisfies His holy wrath, appeases His own justice, and makes a way for a holy God to forgive wicked men and still be holy.
QUESTION: Why would God do that? ANSWER: Love
B. God’s pardon
“Accomplished” is the same root word as in verse 30 (finished)
“Accomplished” is an accounting term…
1 Corinthians says “You were bought with a price…”
Revelation says “with your blood you have purchased men…”
1 Peter 1:18-19 – “For you were not redeemed with perishable things like silver or gold…but with the precious blood of Christ as of a Lamb without blemish and without spot.”
O victory in Jesus…he sought me and bought me…
Sing, O sing of my Redeemer, with His blood he purchased me…
Jesus paid it all…
The debt has not been canceled. It’s been paid!
The debt was not overlooked. It was satisfied.
We did not declare bankruptcy and get out of paying the debt…
C. God’s prophecy
Psalm 69:21 – “They gave me gall for my food and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”
Psalm 22:15 – “My strength is dried up like a potsherd and My tongue cleaves to My jaws. You have brought Me to the dust of death.”
III. The humanity of it (He said, “I thirst”)
Jesus was not a man who became God but He is God who became man.
A. The declaration
I am the Door…I am the Good Shepherd
I am the Bread of Life…I am the Light of the World
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life
I am the Resurrection and the Life
John 8:58 – Before Abraham was born, I am.
I am Jesus whom you persecutest.
I am the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the End…
Now the eternal submits to the temporal.
Here the Infinite relates to the Finite.
Deity sympathizes with a most basic human need.
Scripture reveals that Eternal God has steeped into flesh and
Eternity has stepped into time as Jesus says, “I am thirsty.”
B. The dryness
The One who spoke water into existence…opened the first cloud
The One whose power parted the Red Sea for Moses…
The One who separated the sea from the dry land…
The One who stalled the flow of the Jordan River…
The One who provided water from a rock in the desert…
The One who in His deity said, “Whosoever drinks of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst again but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.”
Now in humanity says, “I thirst.”
Psalm 95:4 – “The deep places of the earth (the seas) are in His hand.”
Psalm 95:5 – “The sea is His for it was He who made it.”
Psalm 33:7 – “He gathers the waters of the sea together as a heap.”
The volume of water in the ocean is about 1.4 billion cubic kilometers. It would make a sphere with a diameter of about 851 miles.
If you took an Olympic-sized swimming pool and turned it into a scoop…at a rate of 1 per second it would take nearly 17.5 million years to drain the oceans dry. If you could turn the Grand Canyon into a scoop and dipped it in once per hour, (277 miles long, 15 miles wide, 1 mile deep) it would take nearly 16 years to drain the oceans.
C. The drink
Jesus was actually offered 2 drinks on the cross. The first was a drugged wine (mixed with myrrh) according to Matthew 27:34. But He refused it. Why?
He chose to face death without a clouded mind. There’d be no release, no relief, and no reprieve.
This 2nd drink is mixed with vinegar. (Psalm 69:21)
aka “gall” = guile = sin
It’s as if Jesus refusing an anesthetic. But willingly takes on our sin.
“I Thirst” by the Cathedrals
One day I came to Him, I was so thirsty
I asked for water, my throat was so dry
He gave me water that I have never dreamed of
But for this water, my Lord had to die
He said, “I thirst,” yet He made the rivers
He said, “I thirst,” yet He made the sea
“I thirst,” said the King of the Ages
In His great thirst, He brought water to me.