Last Words (4)
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After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.”
In His anguish Jesus remained clear-headed and aware that the prophecy of Psalm 69:21 still needed to be fulfilled.
They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink.
This again demonstrates His physical suffering Hebrews 2:17-18, and He therefore understands our hurting too.
Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people.
For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted.
Considering that He gave His life for us, the least we can do is live our lives for Him. But thirsting, even more importantly, is also a spiritual matter. “Whoever drinks of this water will thirst again,” He told the Samaritan woman, John 4:13-14 ; see also John 7:38-39
Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again,
but whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty again. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”
Whoever believes in me, as the Scripture has said, ‘Out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.’ ”
Now this he said about the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were to receive, for as yet the Spirit had not been given, because Jesus was not yet glorified.
“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied.
When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.
What did He finish? All of it! That day saw at least 25 messianic prophecies fulfilled, witnessing to the inspiration of God’s Word. At age 12, He had said, “I must be about My Father’s business” (Luke 2:49); and now that work committed to Him was finished!
He was only minutes away from concluding His ultimate work in the flesh—offering Himself as our atoning sacrifice, His beaten body and shed blood paying for our sins. Jesus had never wavered from His destiny—the Lamb of God, “slain from the foundation of the world” (Revelation 13:8). Now He had triumphed! “Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, who for the joy that was set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame” (Hebrews 12:2).
Also finished was Satan’s fate! It was through Jesus’ death that “He might destroy him who had the power of death, that is, the devil” (Hebrews 2:14). Satan remains to be cast into the bottomless pit, but his time is coming. The Day of Atonement, one of God’s holy days, explains how God will shut the door on Satan and open the door for humanity’s reconciliation with God.
What has God given you to finish? Can we be as dedicated as the One who endured to the end to complete His work for us?
Then Jesus, calling out with a loud voice, said, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!” And having said this he breathed his last.
He who freely gave Himself into the hands of His executioners was now committing Himself into the hands of His Father. In life He had always submitted to His Father’s will, and now in death it would be no different.
The forsaken feeling He’d experienced shortly before no longer remained. He knew God would answer His expectation, so, gasping His last breath, Jesus uttered His last words—words of complete faith.
Exactly as predetermined, of course, three days later God brought Him back to life.
Can we, put ourselves in God’s hands, not only when we die but, like Christ, in every day that we live?