“I THIRST”

Jesus was enduring extreme dehydration.  It began in Gethsemane when Jesus in great anguish sweat drops of blood.

The Creator was on cross.  The One who made the rivers and oceans is thirsty.  The water of life is thirsty.

What does this tell us? What does it speak to us of?

The humanity of Jesus

We are tempted to forget or minimize His humanity.  He was the God-man. He fully entered into our world. He began His ministry fasting.  The Bread of life was fasting in the wilderness.  Then He ends His life thirsting.  The Bread of Life is hungry at the beginning and the Water of Life thirsty at the end.

The submission of Jesus

This shows Jesus submitting to the word and will of God.  He knew that all thing were accomplished.  But He said this to fulfill the Scripture. Psalm 69:21 (KJV) They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

The substitution of Jesus

He suffered with parched lips so we might be able to drink from the well of salvation. He suffered the raging fires of hell for us so that its fires might be quenched for us.  I think His physical thirst pictures our spiritual thirst and His death as the means of quenching that thirst.  Hell is a place of unquenchable thirst.  As Jesus thirsted there on the cross, He bore that for us so that we can drink forever of the well of salvation. 

The issue is not will we thirst.  We are all born into this world thirsty.  The question is, “How long will we thirst?”  The soul of man has an inexhaustible thirst. Only Jesus can quench this thirst. As He said to to woman at the well: If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well, and drank thereof himself, and his children, and his cattle? Jesus answered and said unto her, Whosoever drinketh of this water shall thirst again.

Jesus drank from the cup of death so that we could drink from the cup of life.  He drank the cup of wrath so that we could drink the cup of blessing.  Take a drink of living water now and you will enjoy it forever. The final invitation in the Bible is Revelation 22:17 (KJV) And the Spirit and the bride say, Come. And let him that heareth say, Come. And let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.   The only qualification is if you are thirsty.  Those who come to the One who was once thirsty, never ever have to thirst again.