John 19:28

THE THIRST OF CHRIST

‘I thirst.’

John 19:28

There breaks from the Cross one short, swift word, the only cry through the day’s long hours, which speaks of His own physical agony. Yet we cannot read these words as merely being signs of bodily suffering; there is a deeper spiritual meaning in the words as we read them now.

I. He thirsted for men.—How He thirsted for men! Was that thirst satisfied? Did it have no result? Was He disappointed at all? Nay, one of the soldiers, we read, dipped a sponge in vinegar and held it to our Lord. Do you not think that must have been something to the Master, hanging upon the Cross, that one of the very men who had crucified Him, and scoffed at Him, and scourged Him should have handed something to satisfy His thirst? Yes, that must have been worth something to our Lord. How would it be with us? From the Cross He still appeals to us. None of us can surely ever resist such an appeal. It touches our pity. He says ‘I thirst’ to-day, and if I can read your thoughts aright by your presence here, I know that you will satisfy that appeal. I know that there will be a response.

II. The thirst satisfied.—Here we are amongst friends, those who sympathise with us in our aims, and in our objects, and in our best endeavours; but next week, how will it be then when we are amongst the enemies of Christ, when we are amongst those who are scoffing at Him and scorning Him; who are setting Him at naught? Shall we be as that soldier? Shall we be able to brave the derision and the scoffing of our companions, and to satisfy our Lord’s appeal, or shall we be as one of those, His enemies, who will do nothing? I have not exaggerated the temptations that will come to you. They come to us clergy just as they come to you. It must have been very easy for the disciples to follow Him in the days of His popularity; and the demand upon our lives at this moment that we should live for Christ is not a great one. But believe me, a time is coming when your religion, if it is anything at all, will make a demand upon you, when somehow in your daily life, in your home life, or in your business life, there will be conflicting interests at work, and it will be a question whether you will satisfy the Redeemer and His love for men, or the world which merely stands by and sneers. What is going to quench that thirst? we ask. Nothing but this—giving our lives for His service.

III. What it costs.—Perhaps you are wondering what men and women are doing for Christ to-day, what it costs to be a Christian. Many men and women, girls and young men, whom the world thinks very little about, are serving Christ, and their love for Christ costs them much in homes where they never know anything but taunts and sneers, where all that they hold most dear is sneered at, and blasphemed, and put to open ridicule! And yet they remain true; they are truly doing their best. You have a best to give; you can give your life to the Redeemer now that He asks for it. Let us not give Him that which costs us nothing, a mere modicum of our service, the least we can do, just the one hour in the week in which we go to His house. Let us give Him the full life-service for which He asks.

—Rev. T. J. Longley.

Illustration

‘A German student who had served in the Franco-Prussian War was wounded in an engagement near Paris, and lay on the field unable to stir. He did not know exactly what was the nature of his wound, and he thought that he might be dying. The pain was intense; the wounded and dying were groaning round about him; the battle was still raging; the shots were falling and tearing up the ground in all directions. But after a time one agony, he afterwards told a friend, began to swallow up all the rest and soon made him forget his wound, his danger, and his neighbours. It was the agony of thirst. He would have given the world for a draught of water. This was the supreme distress of crucifixion. The agonies of the horrible punishment were of the most excruciating and complicated order; but, after a time, they all gathered into one central current, in which they were lost and swallowed up—that of devouring thirst; and it was this that drew from our Lord the fifth word.’

(SECOND OUTLINE)

THE WORD OF SIMPLE HUMAN NATURE

This I should emphasise as the word of simple human nature. It was perfectly natural that He should feel thirsty. Remember the awful scourging, and the blood that was shed, and the fever from the open wounds: these would naturally make thirst.

I. There was nothing stoical about the Crucifixion.—He did not wish to hide any pain: He did not bite His lips and shut His teeth, but said quite calmly, ‘I thirst,’ implying that He would like a sponge or something put to His lips. He did not receive it at first when they offered it to lull the pain. But now He thirsts, and they fill a sponge with sour wine and put it to His lips, and He drinks.

II. It shows that in the dear Master’s heart there was not a spark of resentment.—He asks for and receives a kindness from one of the executioners, from one of the men who had been dicing over His clothes, from His enemies, from those who are putting Him to death. That was the most beautiful thing that man ever did in his life—a thing that one who loved the Saviour would long to do. The only thing we can offer Him is a broken heart, and we say, ‘Because, dear Master, we cannot offer Thee the sponge and vinegar, we offer Thee contrition for our sins.’ And I want you to remember that your heavenly Father will not forgive you unless you ‘from your hearts forgive every one his brother their trespasses.’ You say, ‘Yes, I will forgive, but I never want to have anything more to do with that man.’ Or else, ‘Oh, I quite forgive, but I would never accept a thing from his hands—I will never accept a favour from that man.’ I do not think that you can call that forgiveness from your heart.

III. When you are suffering ask the Lord to give you the ‘Living Water that springeth up into Everlasting Life,’ which if a man drink of, he shall never thirst. May God refresh us with His grace!

—Rev. A. H. Stanton.

Illustration

‘It would seem that there are two extremes about representing and dwelling upon the bodily suffering of our Lord. First, of course, there are such scenic representations as those which we sometimes read of in foreign countries. This sensationalism is like every other form of sensationalism, and carries with it the same dangers. This materialism is sometimes in danger of obscuring the very sacrifice which no doubt it is honestly meant to make personal and dramatic. But it cannot be denied, I think, that much of the thought and feeling around us in this country at the present time sets in the opposite direction. All who have looked at the criticism of the New Testament will remember how much is said of the Docetæ, that is, those ancient heretics who looked upon matter as in itself evil, and therefore could not believe that the Lord of glory had a true body. They looked upon Him as being a spiritual Being entirely, or rather a shadow playing an apparent part in an unreal world. And is there not something of Docetism at the root of some criticism upon sacred art which has become very fashionable and influential amongst ourselves?’

(THIRD OUTLINE)

THE CRISIS REACHED

I. It shows the reality of the bodily pain of our Blessed Lord.—Modern religious feeling appears rather to delight in going counter to ancient religious feeling. Ancient religious feeling appears to have held almost universally, that as no sorrow was ever like that sorrow, so no suffering was ever like that suffering. Modern religious spirituality seems to wish to minimise the physical suffering of the Lord on the Cross. It would seem to find a charm in proving that the thieves between whom the Lord was crucified suffered more than He did. But the lower mental and moral organisation would appear to suffer less than the higher and therefore more sensitive. Those who have witnessed it would tell how the Chinese dying of slow starvation with occasional torture superadded, has been known to laugh and jeer through the bars of his iron cage at the multitude who surround him. Our Blessed Lord was made subject to suffering. The word which St. Paul uses in Acts 26:23 means physical suffering. They of old believed that the body which was prepared for it had an exquisitely sensitive organism. Yes, after the agony in Gethsemane; after being dragged about from tribunal to tribunal, from Annas to Caiaphas, from Caiaphas to Pilate, from Pilate to Herod, from Herod back again to Pilate; after the crown of thorns—the terrible acanthus thorn—after that fearful Roman scourging, after the trance which necessarily accompanied the torture, after the exhaustion of those big drops falling down as they did slow and heavily upon the dust of Calvary, after the parting of human love, the dying Lord does not dwell upon His sufferings at length. Just that one word drops from those white lips of His—‘I thirst.’

II. It indicates to us that a crisis has been reached in the history of our Lord’s passion.—In John 19:28 the brightness of the victory begins. ‘After this Jesus, knowing that all things were accomplished’—the word should rather be translated ‘finished,’ for it is precisely the same word rendered ‘It is finished’ in John 19:30. In the ‘It is finished’ of John 19:30, we have the consummation of that which was in the heart of the Lord in John 19:28. There is a perfect unity of character in the representations of our Blessed Lord given to us in the four evangelists. Think of the temptation—He fasted forty days and forty nights, and was afterwards a hungred. First came the spiritual struggle, then the compliance with the lowly needs of the body.

III. A revelation of His character.—How truly and how beautifully human He is! He complies with the claims of the body, with the duty of seeking refreshment. The Stoic might have smiled cynically; the Indian brave, girt round with a circle of fire, his eyes starting from his head in the agony of the heat, and his black lips baked, has been known to spurn so much as a single word of compassion; the Buddhist under the burning sun has hung without one exclamation, without one appeal for help from his dreadful suffering; between him and the Lamb of God there is all the difference between free self-sacrifice and crazy suicide.

Archbishop Alexander.

Illustration

‘A great German Protestant writer, in speaking of this fifth word of our Lord, has likened Him to some hero who feels no exhaustion during the excitement of the battle, until the smoke begins to drift away from the lines, and the roll of cannon-shot is exchanged for a straggling fire—then, and not till then, he thinks of his bodily needs, he goes into his tent and calls for drink.’

(FOURTH OUTLINE)

THE APPEAL FROM THE CROSS

I. There are many roads to Christ on His Cross, and some of us will come by one road, and some by another.

(a) Some— many nowadays, perhaps most— are repelled by the mystery of that dark wrath, by the tremendous issues which weave themselves round and about the Sacrifice. They recoil from the theology which strains to unravel something of the secret. They fear to ask what is there, what is this hidden struggle. Why evil? why hell? Why did not God sweep it away with one stroke of His hand? So it staggers and bewilders, and to many that road is shut off.

(b) Will they come near by the other road? Will they come near to Christ through the strange sympathetic thrill of human brotherhood? In tender confidential trust, through the pathos of the weakness, and the trouble, and the pain—will that draw them? will that help them to come closer? Jesus says to them still, ‘I thirst. I am human, I am your brother, I am as you are; I feel, I suffer, I am very weary and heavy laden, and I cannot hide it. I open my heart to you, and I am wounded by your neglect; I am unhappy, I thirst.’

II. Jesus is not ashamed to show Himself on this weak human side.—Run up to Him and recognise Him, and clasp Him. Let Him make His entry into your heart. Only remember, though you were sensitive to His humanising touch, yet there are other sides true as this, hidden now to you. This same Jesus, Whom you love for saying so simply ‘I thirst,’ is He Who speaks also in the high language, when He tells you, ‘I and My Father are one,’ ‘Father, glorify Thy Son with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was.’ The two are intertwined. The Gospel of John is the Gospel of the highest, but the Gospel also of the lowest, the Gospel of a high union between the Son and the Father, the Gospel which tells you of the heavenliest, sweetest, gentlest, humblest beauties of the Lord’s human nature, the Gospel which tells you how He said, ‘I thirst.’ And do not, therefore, because you can only see one side of the Lord, deny the other, or think you see all because you feel the tender drawing of His word, ‘I thirst.’

III. And those who are drawn towards the high theological dogmatic vision of God Incarnate, of the atonement of blood, of Him Who enters in within the holy place carrying that with Him—do not, because of that, be afraid to recognise Him Whom you rightly adore in this poor Sufferer Who so humbly appeals to your help and pity by His plaintive ‘I thirst.’

Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.

Illustration

‘The expression “I thirst” was chiefly used in order to afford a public testimony of the reality and intensity of His bodily sufferings, and to prevent any one supposing, because of His marvellous calmness and patience, that He was miraculously free from suffering. On the contrary, He would have all around Him know that He felt what all severely wounded persons, and especially all crucified persons felt—a burning and consuming thirst. So that when we read that “He suffered for sins,” we are to understand that He really and truly suffered. Henry observes, “The torments of hell are represented by a violent thirst, in the complaint of the rich man who begged for a drop of water to cool his tongue. To that everlasting thirst we had all been condemned, if Christ had not suffered on the Cross, and said, ‘I thirst.’ ” ’

(FIFTH OUTLINE)

THE THIRST FOR FELLOWSHIP

1. Those who have experienced bodily thirst tell us how terrible is the experience.—We probably have never really known it; but travellers in the desert, those on battlefields, shipwrecked sailors, and many others have left for us on record their frightful experiences. Nothing, they tell us, can be quite so bad.

II. It was this He chose to suffer for our sakes.

III. The words mean something more.—It is the thirst of the spirit which is surely spoken of also. Though betrayed, denied, refused, buffeted, alone, He condescends still to desire the salvation of the poor blind race whom He had come to aid. ‘I thirst.’ Each time we in our dull apathy or careless wantonness fall into sin, whether of commission or omission, we wound and crucify Him afresh. He has come to light a fire, and our lifeless hearts fail to respond to the glow. ‘I thirst.’ Yes, He, the Holy One, the Blessed Sufferer, actually stoops to desire our love and loyalty; He thirsts for the fellowship of His own.

—Rev. A. Osborne Jay.

Illustration

‘These words—“I thirst”—appear immediately to have produced some effect. John’s account would seem to show us that more than one took part in this act of mercy to the Lord. “They filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth.” May we not well suppose that these soldiers were the first-fruits of that appeal? Its result was the finer feeling, the readier sympathy, the instinctive tenderness. Some Chinese women said to the wife of a missionary who worked amongst them, and brought them to a knowledge of Christ, “We first knew that we were women when we first knew Christ.” And so manhood first knew what was best in manhood when it knew Christ. Here was the pledge of the beginning—first sweet music from the lips of Christ, the first tiny ripple of that great tide of helpfulness, of Christian sympathy, which is now coming in full and big upon the shores of every land in Christendom.’

(SIXTH OUTLINE)

DIVINE THIRST

Two words—‘I thirst’—but how full of meaning! They came from One Who had cried out in the streets of Jerusalem—‘If any man thirst, let him come to Me and drink.’ It was the same Jesus Who a little time before sat with that woman in Samaria by the well and told her that the water would only quench her natural thirst for a while, but He would give her water which, if she drank, would not only quench for ever that thirst, but would enable her to go out and quench the thirst of others. And yet He said, ‘I thirst.’

I. Bodily thirst.—After the agonies of the Garden, after the mockery of the Jews and the Roman soldiers, after those three long dark hours, after all that He had endured, He felt a bodily need—‘I thirst.’ If we could only think of all it means for you and me—‘I thirst.’ That awful agony was borne for you and for me.

II. Soul thirst.—‘He thirsted,’ says a modern writer, ‘to be thirsted after. He thirsted long for the souls of men and women. He came down from heaven to draw all the world to Himself.’ Read once again the story of His Passion, the story of the Cross, the story of His death, and you will understand if you read aright something of the awful soul-thirst through which Christ passed. Christ thirsted for human souls; He thirsted for yours and mine. He thirsts. Is not that pathetic? Still He thirsts, thirsts for the souls of men and women all over the globe. Whenever a man or woman is brought to Him, whenever a man or woman comes to Him, it is as though some one had taken a drop of water and touched the dry lips.

III. Fellowship with His suffering.—‘I thirst.’ If you and I had been on Calvary we should have loved to do something to minister to the wants of our Saviour. And when little souls cry on beds of sickness, when a man finds the struggle for daily existence more than he can stand, Christ through them is crying ‘I thirst’ to you and me, and their thirsty souls can be satisfied and Christ will be satisfied through you. Christ believes in man. Christ on the Cross might have been silent, but He chose to speak—‘I thirst,’ and He showed the world what His sufferings were. He says again, speaking through suffering humanity, ‘I thirst,’ and He asks you to do something to quench that thirst, because He knows that deep down in the bottom of the heart there is some hope after all for the very worst man. The way of the world is to make the worst of everybody, to paint every one as black as possible. But Christ believed in man. He thought there was some good even in the heart of a Roman soldier, and He was not disappointed. Show your love for Christ by thirsting for souls that He came to save. Any good that we can do, let us do it now. Do not let us neglect it, for we shall never pass through this world again.

—Rev. F. W. Metcalfe.

Illustration

‘The Church’s Master believed in the recovery of man, and therefore He believed in something recoverable in man, when it was influenced by His Spirit. He passed from heaven to earth, He wore the shape of a man, He became like us—like us in form, like us in feature, like us in language, like us in His affections, with their beautiful strength and their still more beautiful weakness, like us in the heart that throbbed, like us in the blood that was shed. He came to make men more human, He came to give them a higher humanity. He seems to say in our text, “I cannot use these hands of Mine, they are pierced and fastened to the tree; if you were to offer Me a cup even now I could not lift it to these suffering lips; I know there is humanity among you—I thirst.” ’