Fifth Word

After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill scripture), "I am thirsty." A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. (John 19:28-29)

It's a genuine human need - the need for water.
We like to think we're complicated, but our basic needs are very simple; our bodies are mostly made of water, and without it, we die.
Jesus was no superhuman, no demi-god or phantom. He was human, like us, and when his body became dehydrated from exposure and loss of blood, he was thirsty.

What do you thirst for?
Listen to your body:
What makes you shaky and sweaty when you don't have it?  alcohol?   coffee?  pills?
Observe your emotions and behavior:
When do you snap at people close to you?  When you need rest?  need food?

What makes you ignore even food and rest, driving yourself into the ground after it, obsessed...
Insatiable thirsts:   for success,  for recognition,   approval?   for power,   love?   for money?
If these are what you want, you will never be satisfied with life - you'll never get enough.

Morgan Dix addressed the congregation at Trinity Church, New York on this same day, on this same topic in 1894 - more than a hundred years ago, but he could be talking to us:

"O poor, dissatisfied, harassed and troubled race! O scene of eager and hopeless longing and desire, on which this Cross looks down, telling that everlasting truth, which men everlastingly decline to believe! There is no relief from it, excepting in the Cross."

You can drink enough water for the next couple of hours, but pretty soon, you'll be thirsty again, and tomorrow, and tomorrow - like the Samaritan woman drawing water from the well.
There is no relief from even the concrete and basic things our bodies crave, much less the abstract and indefinable things our minds desire.

How much approval is enough?

How much money is enough?

If you thirst for things that you can never get enough of, your thirst will be a torture, a continual reminder of what you don't have. You will go "wretched and tormented, from loss to loss, all the days of your life." (M. Dix)

We thirst for God... In him we live and move and have our being. (Acts 17)
As a deer pants for water, so my soul longs for God...(Psalm 42)

But the world around is offering me vinegar.

I am thirsty.

Fifth Word

"I thirst."

I'm hungry.
I'm tired.
I'm sad.
I'm angry.
........... I'm human.

In Hebrews, we read "We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet without sin. Let us therefore approach the throne of grace with boldness, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need." (Heb 4:15-16)

Sometimes, in my time of need, I can't even say what it is I want - sometimes, I don't even know.
I can only say what's happening. Here's how it is with me - I'm upset. I'm scared. I don't understand. I don't want to do this. It hurts.
I'm thirsty.

To make these kinds of statements is to make ourselves more vulnerable. To say something like this, I'm telling about my weakness - and whoever hears it has the opportunity to use it - either to help - or to ignore - or to hurt.

And this is something Jesus understands about what it is to be human - what it is to be weak, to ask others for help... to be disappointed by their response.
As he was dying, Jesus said, "I thirst," and the people who heard him gave him vinegar to drink...

The night before, he told his friends he was very distressed and asked them to stay up and watch with him - But they fell asleep.

He asked his Father, if it were possible, not to have to go through all this, but his Father didn't change the plan.

Jesus knows what it is to be scared, to be sad, to be in pain, to die.

Again, Hebrews says, "Since, therefore, the children share flesh and blood, he himself likewise shared the same things, so that through death he might destroy the one who has the power of death, that is, the devil, and free those who all their lives were held in slavery by the fear of death. ... Because he himself was tested by what he suffered, he is able to help those who are being tested." (HEb 2:14-18)