After this, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, to fulfill the Scripture, said, “I am thirsty.” John 19:28.
Today your LORD (יהוה) God (אלהים) says:
It was very close to the 3:00 hour, the time of the evening sacrifice in the temple, and Jesus knew that the physical life of His flesh was waning rapidly, the weight of the sins of the world was a burden no one could bear, even one sin is enough to kill for the wages of sin is death. All life flows out of and is sustained by Me and I am love so even one step out of love, true love, takes life, divine life, out of you. Sin pulls life out of you and brings in death and death brings corruption.
Through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death spread to all men, because all sinned. Romans 5:12.
But Jesus changes all that for those who receive Him, He takes you from death to life by taking all your sins away from you and bearing them in His own body. Death reigns over those who sin, but life reigns over those who are freed from sin by My Son, who by His death and resurrection justifies you.
For if by the transgression of the one, death reigned through the one, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ. So then as through one transgression there resulted condemnation to all men, even so through one act of righteousness there resulted justification of life to all men. For as through the one man’s disobedience the many were made sinners, even so through the obedience of the One the many will be made righteous. Romans 5:17-19.
If you love Me you will obey My Word, for My Words are love and life, for I am My Word.
Jesus was the most obedient of all, He never broke even one commandment of Mine, He was the commandments, for He is My Word, but He took on the human nature and flesh and could therefore have sinned as Adam did, but He did not. Satan could find no place in Him. My Son was totally committed to Me.
Then I said, “Behold, I come; in the scroll of the book it is written of Me. I delight to do Your will, O My God; Your Law is within my heart. Psalm 40:7-8.
He not only dutifully kept My Word, He delighted in it and when you keep My Words with delight, you become delightful too. You become a light in a dark world of sin, holding fast as you hold forth the Word of life. And when you delight in Me, I give you the desires of your heart. I give you delightful desires to fill your life with the sweet fragrance of My love.
Jesus came to do all in the scrolls, that is the Law, the Prophets and the Scriptures, which make up the Old Testament, and Jesus was establishing, upon the foundation of the Old the New Covenant with better promises and permanent quality. He was building the edifice of the church and all of you who join with Him are being built and building up that edifice as well. His body.
At this point on the Cross, My Son had spoken four times. Every Word He spoke on the Cross has past, present, future, and eternal significance.
His fourth word had been from Psalm 22, the first line, a man forsaken and being mocked, ridiculed, stretched to the maximum with every bone showing, and going down to the dust of death, which was the sentence on sinful man from which there had seemed no escape. But I made a way of escape from the passageway of death and turned from a downward path to an upward path.
The path of life leads upward for the wise that he may keep away from Sheol below. Proverbs 15:24.
I have made Jesus wisdom to you and righteousness, sanctification, and redemption. 1 Corinthians 1:30.
Searching for comfort in His darkness, He found none, for sin torments you. His soul was abandoned and destitute. The only comfort He could cling to was My Word, and particularly My prophecies about Him.
This is my comfort in my affliction, that Your word has revived me. Psalm 119:50.
In that Word He could see the light of the resurrection from the torment that had come upon Him. The torment on Him was that of the damned, not by any fault in Him, but He had taken all your faults to bear them for you. For you who are in Christ Jesus, it is no longer your fault, it was your fault, but He took your faults and now you are holy, blameless, and without reproach before Me. Now you can walk in newness of life. The old man is gone and new things have come.
After His cry of abandonment, for He was now living Psalm 22 to the full, Jesus, knowing that all things had already been accomplished, spoke again. He had more words to say to fulfill the Scriptures. So He said, “I am thirsty.”
People have speculated on what Jesus was thirsty for and what Scripture He was fulfilling. There are two levels here of His thirst, physical thirst and spiritual thirst, and His spiritual thirst was vertical and horizontal. Thirst for Me and thirst for you, and all were foretold.
First, physical thirst. This is obvious, He hung on that Cross losing large amounts of blood for most of the day with no water to drink. And that physical thirst was foretold:
I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint; My heart is like wax; it is melted within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and My tongue cleaves to My jaws; and You lay Me in the dust of death. Psalm 22:14-15.
But also, His soul was thirsting for Me. I am your source and the only place you can grow and thrive is in Me. And your spirit and soul thirst for fellowship with Me. Jesus had that and now sin cut Him off from that. And that is true of every person.
O God, You are my God; I shall seek You early; my soul thirsts for You, my flesh yearns for You, in a dry and weary land where there is no water. Psalm 63:1.
I stretch out my hands to You; My soul longs for You, as a parched land. Selah. Psalm 143:6.
The woman who met Jesus at the well in Samaria was not only physically thirsty but thirsty in her soul and spirit, and Jesus told her that He could give her the living water that would fill the empty well within her with a well spring of living water that would leap up to eternal life so that she would never thirst again.
“Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him shall never thirst; but the water that I will give him will become in him a well of water springing up to eternal life.” John 4:14.
And the Eucharist fills your spirit and soul so there is no room left for the evil one to enter. I am El Shaddai—more than enough to fill your every need and I do that in Jesus. If you are thirsty, just ask Jesus for a drink and He will give you life giving water. And He will give you Himself.
Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me will not hunger, and he who believes in Me will never thirst.” John 6:35.
But Jesus too, being Man and God in one seamless life that detracted nothing or lessened it in either nature, but became one nature in Him, thirsted for oneness with Me.
And He had, like Psalm 22 about His sufferings and death, a psalm about His thirst upon the Cross. And it is not just contained in one psalm but two it was so great. Psalm 42 and Psalm 43 and these are maskils, which are wisdom psalms.
In case you have not read the Psalms that way, or indeed all of Scripture, they are about Jesus. They contain His thoughts and ways, especially when on earth. When Jesus walked with the two disciples on the road to Emmaus the day I raised Him from the dead beginning with Moses and with all the prophets, He explained to them the things concerning Himself in all the Scriptures.
As to this salvation, the prophets who prophesied of the grace that would come to you made careful searches and inquiries, seeking to know what person or time the Spirit of Christ within them was indicating as He predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories to follow. It was revealed to them that they were not serving themselves, but you, in these things which now have been announced to you through those who preached the gospel to you by the Holy Spirit sent from heaven—things into which angels long to look. 1 Peter 1:10-12.
The creation, the prophecies, the Psalms, they are all about and were lived by Him. And so now let us look at the Psalm of His thirst.
As the deer pants for the water brooks, so my soul pants for You, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; when shall I come and appear before God? My tears have been my food day and night, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Psalm 42:1-3.
You see Him here seeking to see Me and being oppressed by your sins and to make it worse the very religious leaders who should have recognized Him from Scripture were taunting Him as rejected by Me. He remembered the celebration of Palm Sunday and the feasts of tabernacles He had know throughout His life upon the earth among you.
These things I remember and I pour out my soul within me. For I used to go along with the throng and lead them in procession to the house of God, with the voice of joy and thanksgiving, a multitude keeping festival. Psalm 42:4.
But now that was gone and His soul was in despair. But He knew there was resurrection coming, just as He had so clearly told Peter and His disciples many a time. But drinking the cup of My wrath so that you would never have to drink it caused Him anguish of soul and body. In His Spirit, the Holy Spirit was still within Him, making His Spirit strong and that strong Spirit was sustaining Him. But soon to die the death which was your sentence He had to give up the Spirit to Me as well, one cannot descend to hell who has the Holy Spirit in them.
And as He lives this Psalm, He is leading you through with Him as well. If you have ever experienced despair in your soul, walk on with Him and He will lead you out of the darkness into My marvelous light. For your good Shepherd has already gone through the dark valley of death so that you will only pass through a shadow of it and will instead find a table set with plenty, an overflowing cup, the anointing of the oil of joy, and a place for you in My house forever.
Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him for the help of His presence. O my God, my soul is in despair within me; therefore I remember You from the land of the Jordan and the peaks of Hermon, from Mount Mizar. Deep calls to deep at the sound of Your waterfalls; all Your breakers and Your waves have rolled over me. The LORD will command His lovingkindness in the daytime; and His song will be with me in the night, a prayer to the God of my life. I will say to God my rock, “Why have You forgotten me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy?” As a shattering of my bones, my adversaries revile me, while they say to me all day long, “Where is your God?” Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why have you become disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall yet praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 42:5-10.
And His prayer for deliverance continues over into the next Psalm as well. And I answered Him. I did not suffer My faithful One to undergo corruption. I raised Him from the depths of hell to the heights of Heaven on the dawn of the third day. “You are My Son, this day I have begotten You!” Psalm 2:7/
Vindicate me, O God, and plead my case against an ungodly nation; O deliver me from the deceitful and unjust man! For You are the God of my strength; why have You rejected me? Why do I go mourning because of the oppression of the enemy? O send out Your light and Your truth, let them lead me; let them bring me to Your holy mountain and to Your dwelling places. Then I will go to the altar of God, to God my exceeding joy; and upon the lyre I shall praise You, O God, my God. Why are you in despair, O my soul? And why are you disturbed within me? Hope in God, for I shall again praise Him, the help of my countenance and my God. Psalm 43:1-5.
Only in Me is your soul at rest, for from Me comes your hope. And hope does not disappoint. I am here for you always, always. Jesus thirsted so that you will never have to thirst again.
The Spirit and the bride say, “Come.” And let the one who hears say, “Come.” And let the one who is thirsty come; let the one who wishes take the water of life without cost. Revelation 22:17.
And when you thirst for Me, your thirst to bring others to Me as well. You want that love to be filling every heart.
All day long I have held out My hands to an obstinate people who walk in the wrong path, who follow their own imaginations. Isaiah 65:2.
Jesus longed to take you all under His love and protection, like a mother hen with her chicks under her wings.
“Jerusalem, Jerusalem, who kills the prophets and stones those who are sent to her! How often I wanted to gather your children together, the way a hen gathers her chicks under her wings, and you were unwilling.” Matthew 23:37.
And what did the bystanders do for His thirst? Sour wine. A jar full of sour wine was standing there; so they put a sponge full of the sour wine upon a branch of hyssop and brought it up to His mouth.
I love you. Offer to Jesus the sweet wine of your love for so great a Savior, for so great a Salvation. Do you thirst for fellowship? If you are thirsty, come and drink.
Ho! Every one who thirsts, come to the waters; and you who have no money come, buy and eat. Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost. Why do you spend money for what is not bread, and your wages for what does not satisfy? Listen carefully to Me, and eat what is good, and delight yourself in abundance. Incline your ear and come to Me. Listen, that you may live; and I will make an everlasting covenant with you, according to the faithful mercies shown to David. Isaiah 55:1-3.