Lenten Meditations on the Last Words of Christ - Week 5

By Tom Ponchak

"I thirst." (John 19:28)

It’s approaching three o’clock in the afternoon. For nearly 20 hours Jesus has endured torturous treatment at the hands of the chief priests and Romans. He’s been tried, beaten, scourged, dragged his cross through the city and finally nailed to it. Since noon he’s hung on the cross, the hot sun beating down on him. He called to mind Psalm 22 when he said, “My God, My God, why have you abandoned me?” That Psalm goes on to describe his condition when it says, “My mouth is dried up like clay, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.”

But, Christ's thirst was for more than water, and his words call out to each of us today just as they did to those at the foot of the cross. Jesus thirsts for us. Stop and think about that for a moment. God longs for us. His desire for us isn't born out of necessity, as if there is something lacking in God, but springs from his love for us. He longs for us to know him because he knows that only then will we be fulfilled. The only thing that will bring us true joy and healing is relationship with him and he thirsts for us to enter into that peace.

At the same time we thirst for God whether we realize it or not. In the words of the Psalmist, "As the deer longs for streams of water, so my soul longs for you, O God. My being thirsts for God, the living God." (Ps 42) When Jesus called out from the cross those standing nearby offered him a sponge soaked in vinegar to drink. Have you ever tried to drink straight vinegar? It's not exactly a thirst quencher. Yet every day we choose the vinegar of sin to try to quench our thirst rather than come to Jesus who offers living water.

Jesus calls out from the cross to let us know that he longs for us who unknowingly thirst for him. This Lenten season may we choose to drink deeply of the living water Jesus offers through having a personal relationship with him.

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