Dying on the cross, Jesus cries out, “I thirst!” Next to His other cross-borne words, “I thirst” seems insignificant, unremarkable. Unlike His other statements, which rang out with the weightiness of eternity, what Jesus speaks now seems slight, even mundane.
So, why did Jesus speak those words while He dies on the tree? Why did the Apostle John find those words worthy of recording in his gospel account? It’s this: Jesus is a real human, who undergoes real suffering. He’s no phantom Messiah, who only looked like He suffered and died. Jesus is the real deal. He endures genuine, human pain, in His parched throat and lips, desiccated by the desert of our sin.
Don’t imagine that Jesus had some special exemption from suffering because He is the Son of God. Not so! His pain is all our pain combined. “He bore our sufferings and carried our sorrows” (Isaiah 53:4). He is THE Sufferer. He embodies all suffering, taking humanity’s sin and sickness into His wounded flesh, a humanity fallen into death and decay.
Jesus thirsts. How ironic! He began His ministry where water was plentiful—and not just to drink. So much water was there that John the Baptizer could declare, “I baptize with water …” At the Jordan, so much water flowed that no one needed to hoard it, but use it for washing—that most extraordinary and significant washing of all.
“I baptize with water so the Messiah could be revealed to Israel. He is the One, who baptizes with the Holy Spirit” (John 1:26, 31, 33). In the generous outpouring of water comes the river of God’s grace—but now Jesus cries, “I thirst!”
“They’re out of wine,” His mother bereaved at Cana. That was also thirst, but a different one. For they had much water—six stone jars, each holding 20 or 30 gallons. There, Jesus used the wealth of water to make much wine, three days into a wedding celebration. Not a cheap, bitter wine, but the best. Those at the wedding feast should’ve tasted Jesus’ wine first—but now He cries, “I thirst!”
Rabbi Nicodemus, approached Jesus at night, in secret. He also thirsted, hungry for knowledge—maybe understanding, answers to what puzzled him. “How can someone be born a second time?” (John 3:4-5). Jesus then spoke, as John the Baptizer earlier did, of water: “Unless someone is born of water and Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (John 3:5). Water and Spirit: Jesus pours out from His rivers of grace—but now He cries out in agony, “I thirst!”
Jesus asked for a drink in Samaria, at Jacob’s well. Was this, perhaps, a prelude to His words: “I thirst”? But even in His asking, to wet His lips, He offered more, much more! “If you recognized the gift of God, and who is asking you for a drink, you would be asking Him, and He would give you living water. For the water I give will become a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” (John 4: 7, 10, 14). Jesus is the Water of life, who now cries, “I thirst!”
During the Feast of Tabernacles, the Jewish people remembered their deliverance from Egypt. The priests also sprinkled the altar with water. During that celebration, Jesus made a generous offer with a bold invitation: “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink!” He then joined His offer with a grand promise: “The one who believes in me will have streams of living water flowing from within him” (John 7:37-38). Water unending, offered in overflowing generosity, from one who now cries, “I thirst!”
Jesus is the Fountain and Source of living water. Now, on the cross, He is dry, desiccated, and dehydrated. His strength is dried up like broken clay. His tongue sticks to the roof of His mouth (Psalm 22:15). Jesus thirsts for us and His thirst becomes our refreshment. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,” Jesus taught, “for they will be filled” (Matthew 5:6).
His thirst is our satisfaction. His pain quenches our lips too parched to praise, our throats too dry to confess. From the dryness of His being flows living water. A stream of life-giving water gushes from His side, water pouring out into the wilderness. Jesus brings life and resurrection to our dry and dusty bones, but for Him, in His hour of suffering, in abandoned darkness, it’s thirst without measure.
Jesus’ lips once spoke blessing and peace; now they are chapped and broken. His tongue once proclaimed the kingdom of God; now it’s thick with dryness. His throat once shouted the good news that God’s reign had arrived with His coming; now it’s dry as the devil’s wind. Jesus now bears in His body all the suffering He will heal.
He cries out in need: “I thirst!” The One, who is Lord of all, the Creator of all, weeps. The One, who brought forth sea and dry land, calls into the darkness in helpless despair. Will anyone hear Him? Will anyone attend to Him in His time of agony? His only doctors are the cynical soldiers, standing nearby. They’re swigging from their jug of cheap wine, unfit to grace any proper table.
Saints Matthew, Mark, and John all say the soldiers offered Jesus oxos, a vinegary wine. For the soldiers to be drinking it, it wasn’t just vinegar. The Romans called it posca, the peasant wine Roman soldiers drank when dryness touched their lips. They made it by mixing sour wine with water and herbs for flavoring.
You might think their offer of wine was a cold and callous act. Think again. That was what the soldiers had. They could have stood there and watched, letting the wine only touch their lips. Now, that would be callous and cruel. They, instead, shared what they had with Jesus.
Perhaps, by this time, they sensed a solidarity with Him. They were both there, on the crucifixion grounds. Perhaps, an ounce of compassion grew within the hearts of these hardened soldiers. “Let the poor man have a drink before He dies; it’s the least we can do.” So, they lift the last of their wine on a sponge and put it to His dry, dying lips.
Here, John now takes some historic liberty to make a spiritual point. Matthew and Mark are historically factual, telling us the soldiers used a “reed” to lift the wine, the posca, to Jesus’ lips. John says they used a hyssop branch. Hyssop is a small bushy plant, unsuited to bear the weight of a sponge laden with wine. John knew that.
John wants us to see something else. In God’s Old Covenant, hyssop branches were part of sacrifice and cleansing. In Egypt, God’s people used hyssop branches as “paintbrushes” for spreading the blood of the Passover lamb on their doorposts (Exodus 12:22). Priests used the hyssop plant in other animal sacrifices (Numbers 19:2-6, Hebrews 9:19) and purification rites (Leviticus 14:4, 6, 49-52; Psalm 51:7).
John wants us to drink in the spiritual significance of the soldiers extending a hyssop branch, with the sponge of wine on it. Hyssop shows Jesus to be the supreme sacrifice for sin, which brings cleansing to our lives. Jesus is THE Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanses us from all sin (1 John 1:7).
John also takes other liberties to make a spiritual point. In John, chapter 19, Jesus faces judgment at noon, the same hour when the slaughter of the Passover lambs begins in the Temple. John wants us to see Jesus fulfilling all the Passover-lamb sacrifices. On the cross, Jesus suffers no broken bones, just like the bones of the Passover lambs. He is THE Passover Lamb, sacrificed for us (John 19:36, 1 Corinthians 5:7).
At the cross, the soldiers offer Jesus wine. His “I thirst” now completes the work the Father gave Him to do, fulfilling the Scriptures (Matthew 5:17). The day before, these were His words: “I tell you, I will not drink again of this fruit of the vine until that day when I drink it with you, once again, in my Father’s kingdom” (Matthew 26:29).
The fermented juice of the vine now touches His lips. Yes, it’s sour wine, but it’s still wine. The kingdom of God has come. God inaugurates His reign in Jesus’ death. He drinks one more time in this old creation before dying.
The day before, Jesus gave His Supper for His Church. After the Supper, Jesus rose, laid aside His garments, and girded Himself with a towel. He then poured water into a basin, began to wash His disciples’ feet, and declared them to be clean. Now His feet are spiked to a cross, from which he cries, “I thirst!”
Jesus asked this question in the Garden of Gethsemane: “Am I not to drink the cup the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). Even in the offered wine, Jesus drinks to the last from the cup the Father hands to Him, as He suffers and dies for our salvation. Drinking it all, down to the dregs, He cries, “I thirst!” Only one event remains.
Then the end: His body hangs there broken for us all. A spear pierces His side, all so we could receive His blood; and with it, St. John tells us, “water”! The final, complete giving of Jesus, who gave His all for the life of the world.
“I thirst,” Jesus cried before He died, all so we need not thirst into eternity. “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink!” So, Jesus drinks the bitter cup, all so we could drink of His sweet, new wine. “Take, drink, this is my blood of the New Covenant.”
Jesus pours out His sacred blood in wine, a foretaste of His eternal feast to come. Then, wine will flow in unending joy in the marriage supper of the Lamb in His kingdom, which has no end. He drinks of the bitter cup of our human woe, of our suffering and misery, to refresh and renew us by His cup, His cup of salvation. Amen.
