Words From the Cross
From the cross Jesus said,
“I am thirsty.”
Have you ever thought about these three words? Surely, we are seeing evidence of Jesus’ humanity being displayed in a very human way. He has been taken from the garden by an unruly mob and humiliated over and over for hours on end. He has been slapped, beaten, hauled before two different Roman rulers, stripped naked, flogged, forced to carry His cross through the busy streets of Jerusalem, nailed to that cross, and then hoisted up in the air. He no doubt has the taste of blood in His mouth from the horrific treatment He has endured, and Jesus asks for a drink. This is the same Son of Man who went 40 days and nights in the wilderness without food or drink. This thirst was much worse.
Not only was it suffering, it was also the fulfillment of the prophesy found in Psalms 69:21:
“They gave me poison for food,
and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.”
Everything that Jesus did, every word that He spoke, every prayer that He prayed were in alignment with the will of His Father. Even as Jesus hung in anguish on the cross, He was aware that this was not a mistake, not an aberration of what the triune God had ordained from before the beginning of time. Rather Jesus was moving toward the culmination of all that He came to earth to accomplish. And as He asks for relief, we can only cry Hallelujah, what a Savior as we drink from the wellspring that He has provided for us.