28 Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I am thirsty. 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus lips. 30 When he had received the drink, Jesus said, It is finished. With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. – John 19:28-30 Put yourself in the place of the Christians who were there at His death. Your heart would be broken. Your mind would be racing. This isn’t anything at all like what was supposed to happen to the Saviour, the King. He was supposed to set everything right. Mend what was broken. Restore what was lost. But now, all is lost. Everything was broken. Nothing is right. This passage finishes an ironic chapter in the gospel. Jesus shows tremendous honor to fulfilling the scripture. In verse 28, knowing that all things were finished, he asks for a “drink” that the scripture might be fulfilled. You see, the prophets in the Old Testament taught us that the “savior” would “drink” in his sufferings. So He symbolically and literally takes a “drink” in an act of obedience and irony to take upon himself the weight and punishment of all sins past, present and future. Jesus was probably really thirsty. He had carried the cross of shame and then spent hours on it losing precious, life giving fluids. It wasn’t at all strange that he was thirsty. All the toil and hurry which he had undergone, and being now in the agonies of death, ready to expire purely by the loss of blood and extremity of pain would make anybody thirsty. That reminds me of a story in the gospel about Lazarus and Dives where the torments of hell are represented by a violent thirst in the complaint of the rich man that begged for a drop of water to cool his tongue. That condemnation is our everlasting thirst had Jesus not suffered for us. Spend some time knowing that truth to pray for someone you know that lives in the condemnation of thirst every day, then invite them into a life with Jesus.
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