When Jesus died on the cross, He experienced emotional, spiritual and physical pain. Consider the words found in John 19:28: “Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”
All of this happened as a result of the work being finished and His life as a fulfillment of Scripture. There were many times in Jesus’ life that He avoided death. At each time, the gospel writers would record something to the effect: “His time had not yet come….” For instance, in John 7:1, we are told that the Jews were seeking to kill him. He said to them: “My time is not yet here…Go up to the feast yourselves; I do not go up to this feast because My time has not yet fully come.”
Jesus’ life was a fulfillment of Scripture. Regardless of how we might view the Bible, Jesus saw that it as our chief authority deserving of reverence. In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus said that not even the smallest portion of the law would pass away until all of it was fulfilled (Matthew 5:17).
Jesus viewed His suffering, His death and His resurrection as a glorious fulfillment of God’s plan. In contrast, we don’t look at suffering as God ordained. We think that life should be free of pain and adversity. But that just is not realistic, is it? He explained to two of his discouraged disciples on the Road to Emmaus in Luke 24:25: “How foolish you are, and how slow to believe all that the prophets have spoken! Did not the Messiah have to suffer these things and then enter his glory?” And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets, he explained to them what was said in all the Scriptures concerning himself.
And shortly before He died, Jesus said: “I am thirsty.” The fact that Jesus was parched tells us that He experienced so much of His humanity. His statement proves that Jesus was a real human being. He experienced betrayal, discouragement, and now his body is racked with pain; at the very end, He expresses thirst. Psalm 22:15 describes the level of thirst: My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth…. A potsherd is a broken piece of pottery, dried hard and good for nothing.
Because of the physical stress He was under, it most likely He was reaching a state of extreme dehydration. He probably had not had anything to drink in at least 24 hours. Water is needed for circulation and other bodily processes including respiration and converting food to energy. It has been shown that if you lose just 2.5% of your body weight from water loss, you will lose 25% of your efficiency. For a 175 pound man that is only about two quarts of water. This causes the heart to work harder and circulation of blood to be less efficient. Jesus had been flogged and crucified. All of this under a blazing Middle Eastern sun with the presence of extreme emotional stress. His statement reminds us of His extreme suffering on our behalf.
A mockery of satisfying His thirst, John 19: 29 tells us that they filled a sponge with sour wine, and put it on hyssop, and put it to His mouth. Hyssop was a plant used for sprinkling blood or water in Jewish religious ceremonies. The way that they treated his thirst was cruel, sour, wine-vinegar would hardly quench a thirst; would make most of us sick.
But this is what Jesus went through for us. We call it Good Friday because those who believe realize that they cannot be good apart from that great sacrifice. Someone once said that all the world’s religions are marked by man’s efforts to reach out and grasp God, or the idea of God. It is Christianity that teaches that God reached out to man by sending Jesus to this earth to go to the cross on our behalf. 2 Corinthians 5:21 states: “He made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.”
This is why Christians for centuries have believed what the Nicene Creed has taught for centuries concerning Jesus: “…Who for us men and for our salvation came down from heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Spirit of the Virgin Mary, and was made man, and crucified also for us under Pontius Pilate; He suffered and was buried, and the third day He rose again according to the Scriptures….”
Have acknowledged your need for Him? He invites you today to receive His forgiveness, be reconciled to His Father and follow Him.
Central to Life 