Words Of Life From The Cross:
"I Thirst"
A Sermon On:
John 19: 28
PREPARED BY
KEN GEHRELS
PASTOR
CALVIN CHRISTIAN REFORMED CHURCH
NEPEAN, ONTARIO
I love gardening. Around this time of year the urge to muck in the dirt gets the better of me. Off to Loblaws for some potting soil. Order the seed. On with the heating element and fluorescent lights. Planting time. Generally the germination rate is pretty good in my mini basement greenhouse. Little seedlings push green heads out of the soil and up to the light. They begin to thicken.
But every once in a while my brain goes on a bit of a strike. I forget my obligations to those little things growing there. They don't get water for a few days. The soil lightens up. Hardens up as it dries out. By the time things reengage up between my ears and I barrel downstairs some seedlings droop over the side of the pot. Others have shrivelled into a tiny mass of grey death, dead of thirst.
Thirst -- not only for plants, but for humans it's a horrible thing. Those who claim to know say that death from thirst is a horribly painful and slow way to go. The body dries up, deprived of its most essential constituent. Functions begin to fail. Organs shut down.
We can do without lots of things.
But remove water and we CANNOT exist.
The Word of God reveals to us one who is so deprived. He has undergone enormous suffering and stress over the last hours. His body is dehydrated, and his physical suffering enormous.
Parched, but no relief.
Over the last few weeks we have been listening to the Bible recount for us the last words of Jesus - 7 phrases - spoken as he hung on the cross. Today we realize that as these words are spoken, the torture of thirst is increasing steadily.
Oh - as we've seen in weeks past, the pressure on Jesus was enormous. He had suffered at the hands of men. Condemned to death by them, even though it was very obvious that He had done no wrong. Abused in horrible physical and psychological ways. Then nailed to a wooden post.
We've seen how Satan worked behind the scenes, torturing Jesus and assaulting our Lord -- how Jesus entered the pit of hell during three hours of Godforsaken darkness that afternoon.
His suffering for our salvation.
Today these words - I thirst!
I thirst -
As we watch the suffering of Christ we become acutely aware that this suffering was very real and very physical. The basic elements needed for life were withheld from him, and every screaming pore of his body, and the tongue swollen with thirst -- they reminded Him of that.
I thirst.
He suffered - physical horror.
We stop this evening to see that, to bow before that.
When you read the accounts of our Lord's suffering one of the most amazing elements is how Jesus remained mentally and spiritually alert, clear and focused. Almost as if He were above the suffering, somehow removed from it.
But then there are the little snippets that indicate otherwise.There is the cry of anguish, "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" There is his stumbling and falling, unable to carry the beam of his cross any further -- physical weakness after scourging and hours of pummelling torture at the hands of Roman soldiers.
And then there are the words on which we focus this evening - I thirst.
Jesus suffering was real. He was not removed from it.
His experience of physical pain was as deep and real as any that we would experience. Giving new emphasis to these words of scripture that are often read, and so important -
words directed very specifically at those in pain:Since children have flesh and blood, he too shared in their humanity.... he had to be made like his brothers in every way, in order that He might become a merciful and faithful high priest in service to God (Heb 2).
We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who has been tempted in every way, just as we are - yet was without sin. Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. (Heb 4)
There are moments, maybe long moments or seasons -- years perhaps -- in the lives of people when they suffer in deep physical ways. When the body fails to function in smooth, pleasant ways; instead screaming, revolting, rebelling against everything we desire our body to do.
In this season before Easter, this season of Lent, we see Jesus identifying with people in agony; deprived people.
And a word of hope reaches out to us in our experience -- a word of encouragement to pray, knowing that He who is on the receiving end of those prayers is one that understands; and in His understanding goes with us; and as He goes with us, responding.
I thirst.
Friends, in our physical pain we are not alone.
For God himself has suffered.
Understand that first of all.
Hang on to that precious truth.
Have you grabbed hold? Good, because there is one more nugget, one more item of treasure to be found in the words we read -- words of life to you and I. A treasure found when we listen carefully to words that Jesus spoke earlier in his journeys through Palestine; spoken at another occasion where He experienced thirst; while sitting at a well in Samaria. He engages in conversation with a woman. Quite naturally they talk about water. And Jesus says, in effect -"Physical thirst is big. But there's a deeper thirst that H2O won't quench. There's a thirst in the soul that only I can quench..... whoever drinks the water I give will never thirst. Indeed, the water I give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life.... (Jn 4.14)
The body needs water to survive. We die without it.
The soul needs to be quenched, too. Without proper nourishment it, too, will shrivel, droop, grow brittle and eventually die.The thirsty soul -- that is the soul without a living, open pipeline for nourishment from the Creator of Heaven and Earth, the Lord of Life. The thirsty soul is the soul that wanders through the desert of life without ever being replenished from the waters of heaven; without the touch of the Spirit of God.
Remember the call of prophet Isaiah -"Why spend money on what is not bead, and your labour on what does not satisfy?..."
We want peace in life. We want to feel good about ourselves. We want to be able to wake up in the morning and lie down again at night with the sense that all this running around and living and doing and expending of energy
somehow
matters.
That it counts in the grand scheme of things.
That
WE
count.
We want to feel like more than little blobs of tissue on some celestial race to nowhere.
And Isaiah cries out, anticipating the coming of Jesus, "Come, all of you who are thirsty - come to the waters; and you who have no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without cost." (Is 55.1)
Recall other words I spoke earlier in the service, also from Isaiah, ch.44:For I will pour water on the thirsty land [says the Lord] and streams on the dry ground; I will pour out my Spirit on your offspring, and my blessing on your descendants.....
The soul, the spirit, that deep inner element in a human being which lives forever and is destined for either eternal glory or eternal horror.
needs
the presence of God.
After the fall into sin in the early chapters of human history that presence was removed from humanity. We became a thirsty human race. The result is a mixed, poisonous bag of corruption, competition, deceit, murder and twisted dealings that has marred the corridors of time;
that is still with us.
Marriages suffer.
Work relationships grow creaky.
Individuals wake up one day with all the toys they could ever want and discover that, no, it is not so that the one with the most such toys wins. Toys break. Jobs vaporize in downsizing or some massive corporate reorg. Houses get washed away by swollen spring rivers.
There's got to be more - cries the thirsty soul.
I thirst cries Jesus.
He thirsted physically. He also took on the thirst of the human spirit separated from the Spirit of God. He hung on the cross deprived of all things necessary - for body.... and for the soul.
For the body - no water.
For the soul - no Holy Spirit.
Deprived, punished.
As Isaiah says in ch.53:Surely He took up our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered him stricken by God, smitten by him and afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed.
He thirsted that our thirst would be quenched; that our spirits could be touched once more by the nourishing, life-giving Spirit of God; that we who cry out with the author of Psalm 42, saying: As the deer pants for streams of water, so my soul pants for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God; that we would be among those whom St.John saw in his vision that we have as The Revelation; a vision of the eternal destiny of all who have surrendered their thirsty lives to Jesus Christ.
This vision:"...they are before the throne of God and serve Him day and night in His temple; and He who sits on the throne will spread His tent over them. Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat. for the Lamb at the centre of the throne will be their shepherd; He will lead them to springs of living water. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes" (Rev 7.15-17).