From Golgotha to the Grave (4)

The Plea of Thirst Text: John 19:28-29 (KJV) "After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth."

Introduction

Think of what you need to survive, really just survive. Food? Water? Air? Facebook?

Other than Air water is the second most important need.

Water is of major importance to all living things; in some organisms, up to 90% of their body weight comes from water.

Up to 60% of the human adult body is water.

According to Mitchell and others (1945), the brain and heart are composed of 73% water, and the lungs are about 83% water. The skin contains 64% water, muscles and kidneys are 79%, and even the bones are watery: 31%.Each day humans must consume a certain amount of water to survive. Of course, this varies according to age and gender, and also by where someone lives. Generally, an adult male needs about 3 liters (3.2 quarts) per day while an adult female needs about 2.2 liters (2.3 quarts) per day. (The Water in You: Water and the Human Body | U.S. Geological Survey)

Water is essential to human life.

You can go at least 40 days without food but only a few days without water

I can combat hunger, it is a mind over matter and if I had vitimans I could go without food for an extended period of time but now thirst that is one thing that you can not push through.

(talk about working and getting thirsty)

(Illustrate with story of working on a hot roof and becoming dehydrated what it can do to your body)

Thirst is a terrible thing.

and here in this fifth cry of Christ from the cross we find Him in that very state: thirsty.

Here christ is most likely has not had anything to drink since the upper room. It would be safe to say His human side was dehydrated.

This declaration “I thirst” stands out as both a physical expression of suffering and a powerful spiritual statement.

His thirst was physical, prophetic, and profound—pointing us to the problem of sinners who likewise suffer a deep and desperate thirst for salvation.

It was more than a simple request for water—it was a fulfillment of prophecy, a revelation of His suffering, and a message to sinners.

Today, I want us to consider how this cry of thirst is also a cry to the lost, a call to sinners who are desperately in need of the living water only Christ can provide.

From this cry of Christ we can see three things

I. A Sovereign Savior

Christ’s cry of thirst was not a mere whisper of weakness but a witness to His willing sacrifice.

The One who formed the fountains of the deep, who made rivers run and rain fall, now thirsted upon a tree.

This thirst reveals:

a. His Humanity

– Though fully God, Christ was fully man.

He felt our frailties, experienced our exhaustion, and endured our pain.

The thirst of Christ reminds us that He walked where we walk and suffered what we suffer.

He was tempted in all points like as we are.

when the Lord Jesus says “I thirst,” he is speaking in this case not from his very real mortal weakness, but from his sovereign control of his own mission.

This is the Son of God speaking, the Second Person of the Blessed Trinity.

Even in the midst of his helpless condition, he is manifestly aware of his divine destiny

So we not only see…

a. His Humanity

b. His Holiness

Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled.

– His thirst was not just physical but prophetic.

It fulfilled Psalm 69:21: “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.”

Just like he cried My God My God which fulfilled the scriptures of Ps.22. He is fulfilling scriptures again here by saying I thirst.

Even in suffering, Christ was accomplishing the Scriptures.

The Holy and Just God

The very one that created the wood that He was hanging on and the One that commanded the waters cries out for a drink of water so that scripture might be fulfilled.

Think about that for a second

The Seven Last Words from the Cross Fifth Meditation

All through the Old Testament, God the Creator is praised as the One who commands the waters. He is the One who sets their boundaries and causes them to flow in courses that he has laid. He makes it rain for forty days and then calls the floods back into their beds and streams. He piles up the waters of the Red Sea on the right hand and on the left so that the children of Israel can pass through. He makes water gush from a barren rock for his people to drink in the wilderness. He withholds the rain for three years and then sends it once again at his prophet Elijah’s word.

The master of the sea

The One that even the winds and the waves obey

That One

Cries out in thirst

Why?

Because He must

So that we wont have to

Because He fulfilled all the scriptures

We see a Soverign Savior

II. A Sorrowful Society

Now there was set a vessel full of vinegar: and they filled a spunge with vinegar, and put it upon hyssop, and put it to his mouth."

Instead of water, they gave Him vinegar—a bitter, substitute.

This speaks of:

a. The World’s Response to Christ

– Instead of mercy, they mocked Him.

Instead of comfort, they crucified Him.

The world still offers false relief to the thirsty, leading souls further into despair.

a. The World’s Response to Christ

b. The Wrath He Bore

– Christ was given the cup of suffering and separation, taking upon Himself the punishment we deserved.

He prayed for the cup to pass from Him, but instead He drank every last drop so that we would not have to.

He had just been separated from His Father fro three long hours so that we would not have to be

And now He cries out because of thirst.

I think this is a picture of what every lost sinner will cry out in Hell when they are separated from the Father for eternity

The rich man cried out for just a drop of water to cool the tip of his tounge

The sinner’s cup is one of judgment (Psalm 75:8), but Christ drank it fully that we might drink of His grace full and free.

a. The World’s Response to Christ

b. The Wrath He Bore

c. The Weight of Our Sin

– The vinegar symbolizes the sourness of sin, the bitterness of rebellion, and the poison of unrighteousness.

Christ took our pain, bearing the weight of sin so that we might be made whole.

Sinners, too, drink from poisoned wells

—pleasures of this world that promise fulfillment but leave the soul more parched than before.

The sinner seeks satisfaction in sin, but only finds sorrow.

The soul without God is a desert, dry and desperate.

The sinner searches for satisfaction in sin, yet finds no relief.

People try to quench their thirst in money, relationships, power, or pleasure, yet always end up more thirsty.

Only Christ satisfies.

Christ thirsted on the cross so that we might drink freely from the fountain of life.

III. A Sufficient Salvation

Though Christ thirsted, He did so that we might drink freely of the water of life.

– Calling Sinners to the Water of Life

Though Jesus suffered thirst, His cry was also an invitation

—a call for sinners to come to Him and be satisfied forever.

His thirst reminds us of:

a. Christ is the Source

– The same Savior who thirsted now offers living water.

In John 4 we find Christ asking a Samaritan Woman for a drink to quench His thirst and ended up giving her the drink of a life time.

John 4:7–10 KJV 1900

There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, 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.

In John 4:14, He tells the Samaritan woman, “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.”

Once again Christ is calling out to all thpse that would hear, I thirst.

The One that thirsts is the source of our living water

a. Christ is the Source

b. The Call to Come

This plea is also a call to come

– Christ later proclaims in Revelation 22:17, “Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.”

The thirsting sinner is invited to drink from the wells of salvation.

The Living Water is Offered

– Jesus said in John 7:37, “If any man thirst, let him come unto me, and drink.”

This is the message of the Gospel: Christ thirsted so that we might never thirst again.

– The world leaves you wanting, but Christ satisfies.

The sinner’s only hope is in Jesus.

Conclusion

Christ thirsted so that you might be filled.

He suffered so that you might be saved.

Today, the question is: Are you still thirsty?

Have you been drinking from the broken cisterns of this world, only to remain empty?

Come to the cross.

Come to Christ.

The thirst of Christ was a cry of suffering, but it became a call to salvation.

He was forsaken so that you might be filled.

Will you drink from the water of life today?