The fourth “word” of Jesus, spoken from the cross:

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“I thirst”

John 19:28

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As Jesus’ death approached, so did the midday sun. Beating down on these 3 men, nailed to their crosses, helpless and exposed to the stifling heat. Any wind would have been hot and dusty.

After telling of the forgiveness, paradise and provision available to others at the cross, it is from there that Jesus now cries out in thirst.

You might be thinking “What’s the big deal? It was hot, he was dying, he needed a drink, who cares?” And in fairness, you’re right, it might actually be more note-worthy if he wasn’t thirsty, If he’d had some impressive, supernatural hydration for himself.

So why should we care in the slightest that this dying man Jesus, experienced thirst?

Because by it, God identifies with us at our most basic level

Already, we have seen that in Jesus coming to earth, God identifies with the human experience.

He knows what it is to hope and feel and dream, because he himself has hoped and felt and dreamt. He enjoyed friendships and lost loved ones. He knew loyalty and suffered betrayal. He saw faith and witnessed despair. Every height and depth of the human experience was known to Jesus. He lived it.

We humans like to think we are fairly complex creatures. We can philosophise on the meaning of life, paint beautiful works of art, pen fantastical novels and venture our whole selves on another in love. And these heights of intellect, creativity and love are indeed hallmarks of what it means to be human.

But go without water for a few hours in the baking sun, and you’ll soon have a different focus. The universal human experience that is thirst. Felt by all, both king and pauper. That instinctive need for a drink. So basic, so common, so human. Below even hunger in terms of bare necessity. You cannot escape thirst in the heat. And Jesus was no exception.

This should give us confidence that God can actually empathise with us in our longings and sufferings, and not just feel a form of sympathetic pity. In becoming a man, Jesus was not spared any part of the human experience. Not even thirst.

I labour this point, because, so often we can feel like we are all alone in our experience. Like no one could possibly understand. We might not even come to God for help with some things, thinking they are too base and low to bring to him.

But Jesus’ cry of thirst from the cross should explode that lie.

They are not beneath him. They cannot be. You can bring every desire, need, worry, anxiety and thirst to God. However mundane and everyday they may seem. However crippling and fatal. They are not below his experience or his concern. His bloodied body, gasping with thirst on the cross is evidence enough of that.

Indeed, this is the man who specifically invited the thirsty to come to him:

“Let anyone who is thirsty, come to me and drink“

John 7:37

Jesus, who thirsts, invites the thirsty.

But why would we come to a parched source?

This question needs to be addressed. Surely Jesus’ thirst is a sign of weakness, of his limited human power. Surely a god could never thirst? Surely a god could avoid such humiliation? Such human-ness? And if he couldn’t deal with his own thirst, why on earth should you believe he can quench yours?

God can indeed do all things. Yet he chose to take on flesh. To live, to thirst and to die.

This might seem mysterious, but it sheds light on the very character and mission of God. When we consider the paradox of a God who thirsts, we see something of his true nature. We see God:

The Suffering King.
The Servant Lord.
The Lion and the Lamb.

These titles point to the profile and the purpose of the Christian God. They show the depth of his character, the complexity of his ways and the wonder of his action.

They point to the great, high, royal, inexpressible, uncontainable, invincible God, who became a small, low, poor, finite, limited, dying man. 

God humbles himself by becoming man. He swaps heaven for earth. He replaces throne with cross.  Contains himself to a human body with all its limitations. On the cross, the eternal dies. On the cross, the source of everlasting life, thirsts. 

“All religions are made up” – Who could make this up?

The life-changing claim of Christianity is that the one who thirsts:

Is the one who set the oceans in their place.

Is the one who walked on water.

Is the one who calmed the waves.

Is the one who turned that water into wine.

Throughout his life, Jesus demonstrated his complete mastery over the material. His lordship over liquids was complete and total. He could form them, he could tame them, he could walk on them and he could change them.

Yet, in dying on the cross, he chose to thirst. But why?

He chose to thirst that we might never thirst again.

That our hearts would know the joyful torrents of eternal life and love that find their source in the one who thirsts.

His thirst and ours

We know that what Jesus invites us to drink, is no ordinary water. It is extraordinary, soul-refreshing, life-giving spiritual hydration for our gasping human hearts.

When he meets the Samaritan woman at the well, he offers her “living water”. A drink that would not just satisfy, but last, and well up to eternal life. But she saw no bucket and the well was deep. The source of this drink was not from the well beside him. There was another fount.

But to draw from it, Jesus himself must first take a drink, but not a pleasant one. The day before, Jesus was praying on the Mount of Olives when he said:

“Father, if you are willing, take this cup from me”

Luke 22:42

There was a horrible cup in Jesus’ hands. Not a refreshing, satisfying drink. No, it was full to the brim with wrath and judgement. Not for Jesus’ sins. There aren’t any. But for yours and mine. And there are plenty.

But as Jesus hangs there on that cross, know that he drains every, last, drop.

And it costs him his life to drink it on your behalf. The reason he thirsts and dies is so that we don’t have to. Instead, we are invited to the cross to drink deep from the fount of forgiveness and life.

On the cross, As Jesus calls out for a drink, the spiritual floodgates of eternal life are bursting open to guilty sinners like you and me.

William Cowper was a famous 18th century poet who battled with depression throughout his whole adult life. In a rare lucid season, he wrote these words:

There is a fountain filled with blood 
  Drawn from Immanuel’s veins; 
And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, 
  Lose all their guilty stains!

The cross meant thirst for Jesus. But for you it can mean immersion in the bottomless ocean that is the love and mercy of God. The waters that can clean, satisfy and sustain you forever are poured forth from the cross. And you are bid by Jesus himself to come and drink from them.

He has paid the price. He has drained the other cup. Jesus calls you to himself exactly as you are. What is stopping you?

If you are worried you aren’t good enough, worried you are too dirty to be cleaned, to damaged to drink, hear the next stanza of Cowper’s hymn:

The dying thief rejoiced to see
  That fountain in his day;
And there may I, though vile as he,
  Wash all my sins away!

This can be yours. The invitation is in your hands. Come to church, talk to a Christian friend. Pray to the God who thirsted in order to win your heart and satisfy you forever.