The Seven Words of the Cross #5

[HKHaugan]

The Seven Words of the Cross #5

 Jn.19:28 " I thirst."

 Two simple words, yet they are spoken in a spiritual context. That is what all Jesus’ words from the Cross convey and that's what makes the details significant. So, what was going on here? When the soldiers heard Jesus’ words, “I thirst,” they soaked a sponge with sour wine, put it on a hyssop branch and lifted it to His lips.

What do these details mean?

One of the basic principles in understanding the meaning of Scripture is seeing how Jesus fulfilled the Law. “Do not think I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets…but to fulfill them (Mt.5:17).” The hyssop branch is a perfect example of that principle.  In the Old Testament, David’s repentance is voiced in the words of Psalm 51:7, “Cleanse me with hyssop, and I will be clean; wash me, and I will be whiter than snow (Ps.51)."  Hyssop was used to spread the blood of a lamb around the doors during the first Passover (Ex.12:22), in the cleansing of a leper (Lev.14:4) and cleansing someone who has touched a dead body (Num.19:1). Hyssop becomes a symbol of how Jesus atoned for our sin by His shed blood on the Cross so that believing in Him, we ‘pass over’ from death to life thus fulfilling the Law.

 Obviously, the soldiers don’t recognize this.  They are not Jews.  They’re probably continuing to mock Him. It carries another assurance for us that if we are cut down because of what we believe, why respond in kind, argue or take offense? He didn’t. Those Roman soldiers must have been through executions like this before among what they judged were inferior people in an inferior country. They’re just locked into a duty they wish they didn’t have to do in a place they didn’t want to be. Godless conversation and godless action help pass the time. No one there is thinking spiritually. Sound familiar?

There’s still a good bit more to consider when Jesus spoke these words. Remember, He is the perfect human being doing His Father’s will, the only one present thinking and acting spiritually. That’s who He was. Certainly, He had physical thirst but what did that mean to Him. It was no coincidence hyssop and sour wine (Matthew 27:34) meant something special for Him (Ps.69:21). Reminded of the bitterness of sin by the sour wine, He refused to drink when He tasted it. But He did taste its bitterness, the bitterness of sin for us.

 Now consider the word thirst and what it would mean spiritually. There are three kinds. You can break it down into the thirst of the mind, heart and spirit, the image of God in each of us.  If Jesus is the exact image of God (Col.1:15, Heb.1:3), then Him saying “I thirst,” well, that covers our being created images of God, but separated from Him by sin. Sin confuses the mind, alienates the heart and replaces the Holy Spirit with the spirits of fear and pride. Therefore, our mind thirsts for belief, our heart thirsts for someone to trust and our spirit thirsts for motivation, confidence and power to live. Jesus bore our thirst on the Cross, His words ringing with the authority of God, knowing our need in the spiritual wilderness surrounding us.

 Jesus believed His Father’s Word when we couldn’t. He trusted His Father personally when we couldn’t. He had faith to act out His Father’s will when we couldn’t. You can boil it down to this: His humanity suffered the indignity of our ‘couldn’ts.’   He endured our real thirst and became the personal answer if we accept Him as the ‘Thirst Quencher.’

 Jesus told us in the Sermon on the Mount, “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be filled (Mt.5:6)” fulfilling the Isaiah’s prophecy, “If anyone is thirsty let him come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me as the Scripture has said (Is.58:11), streams of living water will flow from within Him (Jn.7:37-38).” Nor, lest we forget, it was the woman at Jacob’s well whom Jesus told, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again, but whoever drinks the water I give him will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life (Jn.4:13-14).” Think of what that meant to her and what happened after. A whole town in Samaria came out to see Him.  Paul defines it very clearly, “We were all made to drink of one Spirit (1Cor.12:13).”

 Now let’s get down to it. If we are blessed when we hunger and thirst for righteousness, Jesus is talking about what feeds and nourishes ‘righteousness’ in us.  Just what is righteousness? Usually when someone thinks of the word ‘righteous’ they associate it with some higher ideal and ethic. For a disciple of Jesus, it means to be righteous like He is righteous. He tells us “Unless your righteousness exceeds the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees you will never enter the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt.5:20).”  Now that’s heavy. Can we possibly attain it?

 Jesus hit a nerve when He said that, because the Pharisees thought being legally obedient was all that was necessary to be righteous. But for Jesus it meant something much deeper; being spiritually right in mind, heart and spirit starting with the heart. Being right within will determine how right we are in the world around us. Therefore, being right for Him was first being right with the Father. That puts the right mind in us. That's where Scripture comes in.  It reflects the mind of God.  What the Lord God puts in the mind seeps into the heart and we begin to trust Him which then leads us to act out what your mind and heart decide to do at any moment.

What Jesus did was to identify our deepest need, the need to be right; right in thought, in the attitude of our heart and right in how we act; our behavior. He knows our sinful motivation is always trying to look right in the presence of others for personal social and physical survival. We fear being isolated, alone and rejected so we conform to whatever standard drives the social atmosphere around us.  That’s human nature in full-blown sin with its spirits of pride and fear in full control. It’s always being on the alert for what may threaten us within and without. Our favorite strategy is to rationalize with our mind, justify our heart’s attitude and studiously develop a behavior that avoids conflict

 Here’s where the Cross comes in. Out horizontal need to survive our lateral social and economic world drives us to live in fear of not surviving this world’s demands so we do our best to ‘fit in.’ ‘Fitting in’ is the slavery to the rules that enable us to escape our aloneness and guarantee our continued existence.

But the Lord tells us that we need a vertical view of what survival really means. That is an eternal relationship of faith in Him who is the presence of God our Creator. He is the living ethic and guide whose Holy Spirit generates His mind within us.   See the Cross? 

So, it’s three things. First, belief in Him and His Word for our mind. Second, trust in Him for His attitude in our heart. Third, faith for our spirit to allow His Spirit to motivate us to do what He wants wherever we are in any given moment. That’s what it means to be right the way God intends. That’s what it means to live as an image of God taking up our cross every next moment. That satisfies our deepest need and is our justification for being a disciple of His wherever we are, in whatever we are doing and with whomever we are in contact. So, when Jesus said, “I thirst,” He was taking on our thirst and crucifying our world-driven thirst for momentary survival.  Through faith, which is our cross, we meet each future moment believing, trusting and having faith in Him.  This is why Jesus said that His food was to do the will of His Father (Jn.4:34) and the water He gives will become in us a well of water springing into eternal life (Jn.4:14). “By this He meant the Holy Spirit…(Jn.7:39).  The question then for us is "Are we really thirsty?"  Let me dare paraphrase Jesus' first words in the Sermon on the Mount, "Blessed are those who are poor in spirit (recognize they are thirsty for the Holy Spirit), for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven (Mt.5:3)."