“I THIRST” – THE WORD THAT BRINGS BODY & SOUL TOGETHER
Prayer: O Lord Jesus Christ, Redeemer of the world, on the cross You did endure the pains and anguish of body and soul to accomplish all things for our redemption, and in Your cry “I thirst!” You revealed Your fervent desire and faith to draw all peoples to Yourself: Grant that the souls of all people everywhere may hear Your gracious Gospel and drink of the waters of life and be satisfied, You who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one true God, now and forever. Amen. (The Lutheran Liturgy, companion altar book for TLH)
The Text, St. John 19:28. After this, Jesus, knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, said, “I thirst!”
Lord, this is Your Word, and these are Your words. Sanctify us by the truth. Your Word is truth. Amen.
In the name of Jesus, who is our meat and drink indeed, faith lives upon no other [ELH 343:7]:
Why did Jesus say, “I thirst”? We think it’s only natural. He had been up all night, with not a moment’s rest. Wasn’t He given no peace, beaten, and made to stand for hours before His human judges? Hadn’t He had to walk carrying His cross, pushed beyond any bearable point of exhaustion? Would His sorrow and grief not make Him thirst, like our tears and anguish dry our throats? Wouldn’t He need a drink? Jesus’ thirstiness would be only natural.
But this wasn’t a natural thirstiness. And thank God it wasn’t just a natural thirst. This has everything to do with us.
Psalm 22 begins with the words that we heard from Jesus last week, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” The psalm puts these words in His mouth way ahead of time, His being forsaken by God. But then, just a little later, Psalm 22 also puts these words in Jesus’ mouth: “My tongue clings to My jaws; You have brought Me to the dust of death.” And in another psalm that foretells Jesus’ crucifixion experience, Psalm 69, we hear: “For My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.” Jesus’ words here fulfill this prophecy.
Jesus’ thirst and His being forsaken are connected. And the next thing we’ll hear Him say will be: “It is finished!” So the words “I thirst” are the connecting bridge between His desolate question, “My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?” and His emphatic declaration: “It is finished!”
So what is this about? Why must He say, “I thirst?” What kind of a bridge connecting these two statements is this? What is He connecting? This is the word that brings together body and soul. His thirst connects them.
Just as every person is created by God to have both a body and a soul, when Christ became man, He received a human body and soul. This commends to you the realization that He shares that with you: not only the needs of the body, but also the needs of the soul; not only physical but also spiritual. The needs of each are described by “thirst.” Jesus came to have that thirst, to share that need with you, to experience it, in His suffering.
So we see in the gospels evidence that He was true man, in that Jesus had the same physical needs: It says that the women who followed Jesus, along with the 12 disciples, “provided for Him out of their substance” (Lk 8:2-3), things like food and lodging. He needed food and drink, He needed sleep, also His mother’s love, and friends, He needed quiet and time to think, He needed money to buy things. It’s love, that He came down to need what you need, to sanctify your daily needs, to be joined to you who need this too.
But He also had the same needs of the soul. He had just said in the garden, “My soul is sorrowful, even to death.” Being forsaken by God involves His soul. But in a positive sense, His need to hear the Word of God regularly – in childhood as Joseph taught Him, and as He attended synagogue every week “as was His custom” – and to pray, and also His closeness to God the Father, as He said, “the Father is always with Me; He has not left Me alone.” This need to have His soul in perfect peace is the need every person has.
God has created you body and soul. Jesus redeemed your body and soul. The Holy Spirit sanctifies you not only in your soul – with the gift of faith, and the other gifts of the Spirit like joy, peace, and patience – but the Spirit also sanctifies your body to be His temple. So, of God we sing in one of our hymns: “All that for my soul is needful He with loving care provides, nor of that is He unheedful which my body needs besides” (ELH 448:3).
But the fact is, you experience a lack in both body and soul. In the needs of the body, it can be with money, satisfaction at work, friends or relationships, or various calamities and afflictions, “adversities which happen to the body” (Lent 2 Collect). With the soul it’s “all evil thoughts which may assault and hurt the soul” (Lent 2 Collect) – so, in temptations and afflictions, whether faith is weaker or stronger, feeling far from God, having doubts, conflict or turmoil in the conscience, or even – in depression – not feeling anything spiritually. You experience this as a “dryness.” This is what Jesus came to experience.
In Jesus’ words, “I thirst,” He enters into that dryness, that lack that you experience in your body and also in your soul. It’s such a great comfort that He shares this with you; it helps you to go on in hope.
And yet, at the same time, you don’t always thirst for the right things; you mis-identify your needs; you are not always heedful of the needs of your soul, and neglect your soul in your spiritual life. You also seek the wrong things in your physical and material needs, you pursue what you shouldn’t, obsess over what you have or don’t have, covet what’s against God’s will, make bad choices and poor decisions in relationships and daily priorities.
This is also why Jesus says, “I thirst.” His thirst is without sin. He atones for your wrong thirsts. He even receives what’s bitter – the vinegar – as God’s perfect gift, that although it comes from below the cross, He receives it as coming down from above, from the Father – so He even atones for your own bitterness and not receiving God’s provision with thanks. He is being your perfect Substitute. He thirsts on your behalf. Now His thirst becomes yours.
When you cry out for the needs of this body and life, asking God to notice your problems, to see what you lack and provide, to notice your loneliness and anguish; or when you cry out for the needs of your soul, when you can only cry in your sadness or depression, or you have a trembling faith, and such turmoil in your conscience – Jesus takes all that into His own cry as He cries out: “I thirst!” As God answered Jesus’ cry, He answers your cry. He is there for you, as Jesus makes Himself one with you in your dryness and thirst. In the water of baptism, and is He makes Himself one with you in His body and blood in the Lord’s Supper, He satisfies your thirst.
Jesus now says to you: “If anyone thirsts, let Him come to Me and drink” (Jn 7:37). He is the Fount of life, who is so near you (ELH 437:2). He redeemed you body and soul in His death, and sends His Spirit to make your body His temple and to sanctify you by faith and brings you to heaven, where you are among those of whom it is true that “they shall neither hunger anymore nor thirst anymore … for the Lamb, who is in the midst of the throne, will shepherd them and lead them to living fountains of waters. And God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.” (Rev 7:16-17) Amen!