Greetings:
What does it mean to be thirsty? Christ speaks from that cross a fifth time, it seems a strange word, “I thirst!” (Jn. 19:28) But this is not a standalone comment. The whole verse says, “Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scriptures might be fulfilled, said, ‘I thirst!’”
Thirst, is an interesting word. Typically we think of thirst as a need for some cool refreshing glass of a beverage of our liking to quench a parched throat after being in the hot sun or a hard day’s work. Thirst is also a term used to quench the desire to drink in knowledge, and understanding. We even think if thirst for inanimate things such as the earth thirsts for moisture so it might produce plants.
Thirst is quenched by fulfilling the need for which thirst exists. Thirst exists when a body, living being, needs to have its fluids replenished. That was way too complicated: thirst is satisfied when we take a good long drink of cool clear water. If this is all thirst was needed for life as we know it would be easy and simple. But we all know that thirst is so much more complicated. As parents, teachers, we understand early on that there is a thirst from the first time a child asks, Why? This is when we learn that thirst is much deeper than simple water. Indeed such thirst is a bottomless well. Our Lord even talks of this in His sermon on the mount, “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness.” Information is a very deep well as knowledge is expanded like a snowball rolling down hill. So it is with us as we thirst to know more and deeper things of our God and Savior, a thirst that has need of being quenched. As mentioned above the parched places of earth thirst for its drought of judgment to end even as we learn in the book of Romans chapter 8, “For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God.” I understand that one of the most intriguing places you can be is in the desert after it rains. The parched ground sucks in the water and the whole desert bursts into bloom for it thirsts for the gift of water even if it is temporary release from the bondage of endless sand and wind.
Jesus’ cry from the cross comes only after He has accomplished all things demanded by His Father to satisfy the judgment against all people because of our disobedience and fall from grace into the depths of destruction. The work of Christ was the crushing of the death grip the devil has on all creation and mankind not through earthly means or by the Law but through good and pure power against raw evil carried out through the motivation of love for all He made. We might attempt to bring about good through a law, which never works. But not so God for He brings about good through good and freedom from the bondage to evil which, since the fall, is our nature. Listen to this work of Christ as explained by St. Paul, Romans 5, “For if when we were enemies we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son, much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life…. For if by one man’s offence many died, much more the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one Man, Jesus Christ, abounded to many.” No wonder Christ thirsted for on the cross He was carrying out the actual work by which we were given the life of faith we now live. Thirst is a powerful thing and my persistent prayer is that we who are reconciled to God have a continuing thirst for the gift which He strengthens in us here and unto all eternity.
Have a blessed week. Pastor Rehborg