I Thirst  John 19:28

Among the more mystifying words from the Cross are the words that are before us today. “I thirst.” They are the only words from the Cross that begin with “I” and, therefore, point attention to Himself. It was not a request although it resulted in the soldiers placing a sponge of vinegar to His lips. That cry was not merely to announce His physical thirst but to point beyond that to something much deeper.

“I thirst.” Jesus began His ministry with the temptation of Satan and there He was hungry. He ended His ministry on a Cross and there, He was thirsty. Jesus confronted a Samaritan woman at the well He offered her water. Read John 4:14. He thirsted in our place but offers that which eliminates thirst. 

The timing of the request was important. First, it was “after this.” We can assume that referred to after the darkness and the separation of Jesus from His Father. It was “knowing that all things were accomplished,” that is knowing that our needs had been met. At a bare minimum it would tell us that the most important thing on the mind of Jesus that day was not His suffering but our salvation. Once the price of our sins had been paid for, He could turn attention to Himself and speak of its cost in ways that He could not have before that hour. Redemption was accomplished and He could think of His own thirst.

This cry was after the fulfillment of an Old Testament prophecy. That prophecy is found in Psalm 69:21 where we read, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.” Everything He was going through was known ahead of time to the God who is above time.  Over 20 Old Testament Scriptures were fulfilled during the last 24 hours of Jesus’ earthly life. The fulfillment of prophecy was God’s way of further identifying Him as the promised Messiah. 

Jesus was the one spoken of in the Old Testament. The cry of thirst from the Cross did not point so much to the physical as it did to the deeper price of our redemption. The Jesus of the Cross was not merely a good man whose goodness was misunderstood. He was not merely a prophet whose message was not accepted. He was not merely the victim of political intrigue. He was the Promised One of the Old Testament. When He came in the fullness of time He could truly be identified as the promised Savior. The words were spoken as a testimony to who Jesus was and why He was on that Cross. It is a reminder to us that nothing that day happened by chance. Every last detail was planned in advance by the Father who loved us so deeply that He gave His Only Son to die in our place.

For a moment think about Him thirsting.. He was part of creation. Read John 1:3. That means that the one who thirsted on the Cross had made every river that existed. He had made every spring that fed every well on earth. Not only had He made them, He controlled them. Scripture tells us He commanded the rains to cease for 3 years during the time of Elijah and then directed them to begin again. He told the waves of the sea to be calm and they were. But on the Cross, He thirsted. With one word He could have ordered a river to literally flow through His mouth, but He thirsted. He thirsted because men thirst. He was one of us, taking our place on the Cross.

“I thirst” certainly speaks to the physical suffering of Jesus on the Cross. The night before Jesus met with His disciples in an upper room and celebrated the Passover Meal. After that celebration He went out to the Garden of Gethsemane where He prayed. Then He was arrested and that was followed by a night of illegal trials, beatings by the soldiers, mockery by the masses, being taken to Golgotha and then crucifixion. It was 9 in the morning when He was placed upon that Cross. For 6 hours He hung there. From noon to 3 it was dark and, as far as we can tell He declared “I thirst” shortly after the sun shone again. Simple calculations will tell us that under those difficult conditions, some of them in the hot Judean sun and all in the hot Judean temperatures, Jesus had gone 20 plus hours with nothing to drink. To merely note that He was thirsty had to have been an understatement. His mouth must have been incredibly dry, His lips swollen, His throat parched. He was thirsty for sure. He had been thirsty long before He spoke those words.

Some have suggested that He wanted a drink so that His throat would be better and His voice muscle sufficiently strong to be able to say the last few words of the Cross. History tells us that many on crosses became so dehydrated, so dry overall, with throats so swollen and vocal cords so parched that they could not even cry out in pain. But Jesus was still able to speak with only a few words left to declare.

The best commentary on Scripture is Scripture itself. Thirst in the Bible often represents the emptiness of life without a relationship to God. That was what Jesus was referring to when He told the Samaritan woman that He had water that would ensure she never thirsted again. We have a parable of Jesus that helps us understand a little more fully the implications of “I thirst.” In Luke 16, beginning in verse 19, we have the parable of a rich man and a beggar named Lazarus. In life the rich man had everything while the beggar had nothing. Jesus said that the rich man had everything except faith and Lazarus had nothing but faith. They both died. The rich man, who had no faith, went to Hell. Every now and then I hear of someone who denies the reality of Hell, but you need to remember that regardless of what others may say, Jesus believed in Hell. It was because of His belief in Hell that He went to the Cross. There is no other way to explain the Cross if there was no Hell and God did not love us enough to want to ensure that we never have to go there. In that parable we are told that the rich man prayed.  Read Luke 16:24 for what he asked for.  

On the Cross Jesus took our sins upon Himself and that meant the separation or thirst that rightfully belonged to us. His thirst was our thirst. It was a thirst He had never felt before.

The idea that He thirsted by taking our place helps us understand the price of our redemption and it also helps us understand the glories of our redemption. Read John 7:37-38 and Revelation 22:1. In John we read that Jesus say, “I thirst” and then in Revelation we read of the river of life that ensures that you and I will never thirst again. He thirsted that we need not. He who offers us the water of life died thirsty.

Revelation 7 tells of those who had been martyred for their faith in the tribulation and records of them in Revelation 7:14 that they are now at the throne with the Father. Read Revelation 7:16. Hear Jesus say, “I thirst” and then listen again to His promise to those who are faithful to Him, “never again will they thirst.” 

On the Cross Jesus declared that He thirsted. We must not minimize the agony of those hours or the love that took Him there. At the same time, we must never think that all it cost Jesus to secure our redemption was a few hours of pain on a Cross. The battle was not for our physical lives but for our souls. The price of that was spiritual death which includes a thirst for fellowship with God. Jesus loved us enough to pay the full price and all He asks of us in return is that we accept His offer of forgiveness All He asks is that we take unto ourselves the redemption purchased at so great a price. The offer is very simple. Accept the water of life Jesus died to provide or spend all eternity thirsting after God and unable to find Him.

Had you been at the foot of the Cross that day and heard Jesus declare He was thirsty, would you have given Him a drink? I am sure we would have. Here is the good news. You can still offer that water. Read Matthew 25:35-40.  He took our thirst. Now He asks us to give a cup of water in His name to others who are thirsting physically so that we may introduce them to the one who can give them the water that will mean they will never have to thirst spiritually. Is that too much to ask of us when we consider all He went through so we would not thirst?

My God, why have you forsaken me? Matthew 27:46

Today we are looking at the words “My God, why have you forsaken me?” as spoken by Jesus from the Cross. 

I know of no words in all of Scripture that portray the cost of our redemption better than those words. The Cross was designed for torture. Many believe it was the most gruesome form of putting a man to death that humanity has ever devised. Crucifixion was considered so ugly by the Romans who devised it that they forbade it being used on any Roman citizen regardless of the severity of the crime. Yet the real agony of the crucifixion is not the physical torture but the weight of our sin upon the Jesus. He who knew no sin or the effect of sin in His relationship with the Father, suddenly felt the separation that sin causes. We are going to look at those words today in their setting and then as they relate to Jesus, to the Father and finally to us. 

The setting of these words is important. They were spoken during the hours of darkness. Read Matthew 27:45. That darkness presents an interesting study in itself. The Greek word used here indicates that, unlike an eclipse, suddenly it turned dark. We know it was not an eclipse not only because of the suddenness with which it appeared, but also from its length. It lasted for 3 hours and no eclipse lasts that long. This was God’s doing, a supernatural event. Some have called it the original Black Friday.  Usually darkness in Scripture is related to judgment and certainly those hours were judgment on sin. In addition, it was also designed to hide the physical suffering of Jesus. One can well appreciate the idea that God would not want mankind to look at His Son so disfigured as to be all but unrecognizable and in such extreme pain.  Perhaps even more than that, it was designed to force our attention off the physical and onto the even more ugly suffering of the soul that was separated from God. 

There are some who would say Jesus was never forsaken but He only felt that way. It was really just a normal feeling like we would have in such a situation when one has gone through as much as Jesus had gone through in the previous 24 hours. He had suffered so much and felt as if there was no relief. It is certainly true that we sometimes, inaccurately, feel like we have been forsaken by God.  That was, however, not the case with Jesus. He was truly forsaken by God.

The Prophet Habakkuk wrote that God is so holy that He cannot tolerate sin in any form. Read Habakkuk 1:13. That’s man’s problem. As sinners we cannot enter into the presence of the Holy God. Unless our sin problem is cared for we must forever be separated from God.  Paul, however, wrote that Jesus paid the price of our sin. Read II Corinthians 5:21, I Peter 2:24 and Galatians 3:13. When Jesus became sin, His Holy Father could no longer look upon Him and for that time He had to forsake His Son. Jesus was literally forsaken by God as He hung on that Cross with the weight of our sins upon Him.

We cannot begin to imagine how Jesus had to have felt when our sin caused the broken fellowship with the Father. The agony of those words is found in the distance between the perfect fellowship that Jesus and the Father had enjoyed for all eternity and the broken fellowship that then separated. On the Cross, with our sins upon Him, He was cut off from the love of the Father. He was cut off from all communication with Him. He was cut off from all of the rights and prerogatives of Sonship. As Richard Bodey put it, “Now He hung between earth and heaven with no home in either. His Father’s smile was hidden. His Father’s favor was withdrawn. Laden with the sins of others, the sinless One sank into the lowest depths of hell as the waves and billows of God’s wrath swept over him.”

Imagine, if you can, the horror of Him being separated from God and then realize that had Jesus not endured the Cross we would be crying out for all eternity, “God, where are you?” 

The agony of separation is the wage of sin. You and I should have to experience it, but He took our place. Read I Peter 3:18. Death in Scripture always means separation. On the Cross Jesus experienced the physical death of separation of body and soul that would occur shortly after when He commended His spirit to the Father. In addition, with our sin upon Himself He experienced spiritual death as He was separated spiritually from His Father. He was forsaken when we deserved that separation. 

What must those words have meant to the Father in heaven? How do you suppose the Father felt when He heard them uttered? Sometimes, in our thinking we see Jesus as the one who loves and the Father as the one who judges. But God is love in the fullest sense of the word and He perfectly loved both His Son and lost mankind. God the Father had to have felt incredible anguish and heartbreak that hour. As the Son had had perfect fellowship with the Father for all eternity, so too had the Father had perfect fellowship with the Son. Then He was unable to help, to intervene, to share the burden. He was unable to send 10,000 angels to take Jesus off that Cross. He was unable to do any of that if the plan of redemption was to be accomplished for mankind. How do you think God the Father felt as He saw our sins placed on His sinless Son? The love of the Father for His Son was no less. At no moment did He stop loving Jesus because of the sin. He could not, however, love the sin so He had to allow His Son to suffer the separation that sin required of Him as the Holy One. We rightfully thank Jesus for going to the Cross but let us never forget the agony that the Father felt that day or the love He displayed for us in allowing His Son to bear our sins and die in our place.

Think also of how the Father in heaven had to have felt at that very hour. Here was the Son whom He had delighted in for all eternity and He must watch Him die and could not, for our sakes, intervene. That was love. The Cross was a demonstration of the love of the Godhead.

What do those words mean to the lost, to those who have never accepted Jesus as personal Savior? They mean nothing except an example of the cry they will make for all eternity. In our age there are many who deny the existence of a hell or say that God surely would not send anyone to a hell. That would be nice were it true. But what kind of a God would we have if, after all He allowed Jesus to go through, He did not send anyone to Hell who refused to accept His provision? It is impossible to believe that God would pour out His wrath on His Sinless Son and then not judge those who reject His love. There will be judgment. The Cross assures us of that.

What does this to say all to who have made Jesus their Savior? First, it meanswe do not have to face that separation we otherwise deserved. He took our separation upon Himself. Read I Corinthians 15:57. More than just thanks is needed. I Corinthians 15:58. William Barclay, in his book The Mind of Jesus, wrote about the incredible love of Jesus and His grace that makes redemption possible. Barkley then wrote, “Grace is the greatest gift in the world. Grace is a gift; and grace is a gift of love; to offer that grace to men cost God all He had to give; and therefore, there is laid on every man the awe-inspiring obligation of doing all he can to deserve that grace. That he can never do; but he can and must respond to that grace by seeking throughout all his life to be what that grace desires him to be. He must say: ‘If I have been loved like that I dare not break the heart of that love’”

 “My God, why have you forsaken me?” They are words with deep meaning. Who can even hope to comprehend the fulness of their meaning? Yet in the process of contemplating them, we should be reminded of why we must share God’s love with all, so they too may be saved. In contemplating them we are reminded again not only of how much God loves us but what that love should mean each and every day to the way we live. 

Love that Transforms: Luke 23:32, 39-43

The second set of words spoken by Jesus on the Cross are “Today you will be with me in paradise.” They speak of the love of God that transforms.  In these words, we have the heart of God displayed. They are words of grace and love. 

Picture the setting. Three men had come to the most crucial point in one’s existence, that moment between life and death, lingering in life and yet about to exit this world. One was Jesus and the other two were criminals. They were going to die on a cross so as to suffer and become an example to others who might be contemplating a life of crime or rebellion. 

The two men who died with Jesus that day were very much alike. Both had lived lives of sin and were known for their wickedness. The word that Matthew and Mark use to describe them was the common word for a terrorist or individual who led a band of outlaws known to prey on travelers and even whole communities. Both men had been arrested, tried and found guilty. Now they hung together dying and facing the same fears and uncertainties.

Both men had been eyewitnesses to some of the events of that day, especially the events that centered about Jesus. Both had walked with Jesus to the place of crucifixion bearing crosses like Jesus. Both had seen Jesus fall, unable to carry His Cross. Both had seen Jesus placed upon a Cross. Both had undoubtedly fought and cursed but they Jesus heard Jesus lift His voice upwards in prayer and ask His Father to forgive those who were killing Him. Both saw in Him someone special. 

They were two men in a desperate plight, two men deep in sin and two men in need of divine forgiveness. How very much alike they were in life and yet how different they would be in death. One died as he lived, as a self-sufficient, hardened, sinner. The other recognized Jesus as one so different and special that he turned to Him and, in simple faith and complete dependence, asked to be remembered when Jesus came into His kingdom. By that act of faith, he entered eternity in a very different way than the other who died with Jesus.

It’s marvelous to see that God was in complete control of that crucifixion. Jesus was hung in the middle of the two thieves.  It’s assumed that both men were companions in crime and sentenced to die together. If that was so, then the logical way to place the crosses would have been to put those two beside each other. But Jesus was placed in the middle so both men could talk to Jesus. In Jesus’ most agonizing hours God arranged it so those men could see that He was a King. God is not willing that any should perish.

One thief had come to the place where he could admit his own sin and thus his own guilt. He declared he was there justly for crimes that he had committed. Many throughout history, and in our society today, have not come to the place of acknowledging that they are sinners. Some acknowledge some failures but add quickly that for the most part they have lived well so they deserve heaven. That thief knew he was a sinner deserving death, even death on a cross. He saw the innocence in Jesus and declared He had done nothing wrong. It is easy to compare our righteousness to others and decide we are pretty good but that’s the wrong comparison. We must compare our supposedly righteousness with that of Jesus. 

Keep in mind the setting in which Jesus answers that plea. He Himself was dying and in incredible agony. He had His disciples on His mind and He was concerned about his mother. He was utterly exhausted, having been up all night in illegal trials. He had been beaten and whipped and all manner of evil done to Him and now He hung in excruciating pain. He was weighed down by the incredible weight of humanities’ sins. 

Jesus not only heard the plea of one dying with Him, but He sensed his faith. So, in mercy and love, He turned to him and declared, “Today you will be with me in paradise.” Jesus promised, “He that cometh to me I will in no wise cast out.” The answer to that request at the hour he made it, is a reminder that God is never too busy to hear our prayers or to reach out in love to meet our needs.

If a man with the character and background of that thief could come to Jesus when he did, and gain both the attention and pardon of Jesus certainly we can be confident that whoever approaches Him, not as one dying but as a risen Savior, will find a listening ear, mercy, love, and forgiveness. 

The request of that man on the cross was a simple act of faith in what he believed Jesus could do for him and not in what he might do for Jesus. That thief came to Jesus with nothing. He was in no position to promise Him anything. He came totally dependent upon His mercy. It was too late to promise to turn over a new leaf and live better. It was too late to promise to walk in the path of righteousness, for he was already nailed to a cross. All that the thief could do was come, cut off from all self-righteousness and cast himself in faith on the mercy and love of Jesus. That is what saving faith is always all about. Casting ourselves totally on Him.  

He asked simply to be remembered. We don’t know what he wanted, and probably he himself did not know, but he asked to be remembered and Jesus declared that that day he would be with Him in paradise. He was given so much more than he asked for but then that is the nature of God. God has promised to give far more than we ask for. 

The word today is important. There are churches today that do not teach this. Some teach a soul sleep in which the souls of the departed are all sleeping until the day of Christ’s return. There are those who teach some intermediate state sometimes called purgatory where one goes awaiting further purification. But God’s Word teaches that to be absent from the body is to be present with the Lord and so that word “today” is important. For the believer, whose separation has been canceled because his sins were paid for on the Cross, the moment the soul departs the body he is with the Lord.  

The word paradise is important. We wonder what heaven going to be like. The best we can say is that it will be paradise. Read I Corinthians 2:9. 

The most important part of that promise is, “You will be with me.” Heaven can be described in many ways but, in the end, the real feature of heaven is that God is there, that we will spend eternity with our Savior. Being with Him is all the paradise we will ever need.

When God created man, He created us in His image so that we might have fellowship with Him. Sin destroyed that fellowship and man was not only cast out of the garden, but he could no longer walk and talk with God as he had previously done. Man became the sinner, and no one typified it more than that thief on the cross who had lived a life of gross sin. On the Cross sin was cared for as Jesus paid the price of that sin and thereby removed the barrier to reconciliation.  Renewed fellowship was/is now possible. Because of that, Jesus was able to declare to that thief, “Today you will be with me.” 

The prophet Isaiah wrote that in His death, the Messiah would save many. The thief on the cross that day was the first of the many His love would save. The account is a reminder that it is never too late to accept Jesus. One can wait until just before he dies, if he is sure he will be able to tell when that time will come. But since none of us really knows that, today is the day to make that commitment. 

“Today you will be with me in paradise.” What a precious promise that was for one who was about to die. What a promise that is for all who know Jesus as Savior for it is appointed unto man to die. For those without Jesus that is also an appointment to judgment but for the Christian it is an appointment to paradise.

Father, Forgive Them Luke 23:34

This Lenten season we are going to look at the 7 statements Jesus made from the Cross on the day He died. We will follow an outline found in a book by Herbert Lockyer entitled “Seven Words of Love. Read John 3:16 and Romans 5:8. Because God loves us, He desires to have fellowship with us. Fellowship with God was built into our creation in His image, but fellowship lost when man entered into sin. So, God sent His Son Jesus to be our Redeemer. Every word from the Cross speaks of His love and of the degree that He was willing to go to pay the penalty of our sin and thus restore the fellowship He created us to have. 

Read from Luke 23:34 the first words from Jesus on the Cross that day. 

The Greek word Luke used to record “Jesus said” is in the imperfect tense, which is a tense used to describe something that happened in past and continues into the future. That has led many to believe that Luke was telling us that Jesus kept on saying that over and over. 

Notice that His first word was addressed to God as “Father.” That was the way Jesus addressed God often in prayer and was the way He instructed us to address Him. The next time Jesus addressed Him, He did so as “My God, My God.” His final address from the Cross will once again be to His Father. 

Jesus clearly practiced what He preached. He taught His disciples that they were to forgive those who despitefully persecute them or abuse them in any way. One day Peter asked Jesus about forgiveness and how many times one was to forgive. Jesus told him there was to be no limit to it either in terms of what was forgiven or how often. On the Cross, Jesus practiced what He told us we too should be willing to do. 

I wonder how God felt about forgiving them. He forgave because that is who God is but consider the love displayed in granting that request. God had observed men totally mistreating His Son to the point that, as Isaiah described it, Jesus was unrecognizable. The Father saw the soldiers drive spikes into His Son’s hands and felt the pain Jesus felt. Think about how God the Father had to have felt when Jesus asked Him to forgive them.

Jesus asked His Father to forgive them. On other occasions Jesus Himself had forgiven sins. In Mark 2 a paralyzed man was lowered to Jesus through the roof of a house. In verse 5 Jesus told the man that because of his faith his sins were forgiven. That seriously upset the religious leaders who said only God could forgive sin. Jesus then announced in Mark 2:10 that He had the authority to do just that. But on the Cross, He completely identified with us, setting aside His prerogatives as deity so He deferred forgiveness to the Father.

Those words themselves were a fulfillment of prophecy. Read Isaiah 53:12. In fulfilling prophecy Jesus reminds us that the events of that day were not history spinning out of control but part of a plan that originated before the foundation of the world. It was God’s plan whereby salvation would be provided if man chose to sin. The very moment Adam and Eve sinned that plan was put into effect and was fully played out on the Cross. 

In expressing His willingness for the Father to forgive, He was also telling us that He was accepting the events of that day. Read John 10:17-18. Jesus knew why He had come and knew the agony that He would face on the Cross. 

Jesus said, “Father forgive them.” It is always good to consider who the “them” really were. Of course, it was the Roman soldiers who so cruelly drove the spikes into His hands. It included the Scribes and Pharisees who had plotted for nearly 3 years for that moment and instigated His arrest and insisted on His death. In some way it included the crowd who had, hours earlier, cried “Crucify Him, Crucify Him.” Pilate belongs on that list for, even though he found no fault in Him, he none-the-less ordered His crucifixion. The list should include the disciples who had fled that night in fear and were a part of His loving plea for forgiveness. We must include our names on that list. Was He not there for the sins of the whole world, and does that not include us? While not physically present that day we certainly were responsible, because of our sins, so that plea to the Father was for us also.

It’s too easy to read that Jesus asked God to forgive those who put Him there and think of the major sinners of our day. The men who planned the 9/11 attack or the group of ISIS soldiers who beheaded Christians and then sent out a video bragging about it need forgiveness for sure. But all of us need forgiveness for our sins. even if our sins seem small compared to others. 

In the opening chapter of Leviticus Moses, the author, detailed the sacrifices God required of the nation in general. As the book goes on, the list of sacrifices moves from the overall need of the nation to the need of individuals. Read Leviticus 4:1-2 and verse 13. Note that even unintentional sins need forgiveness. After each sin is covered by a sacrifice we read that they were forgiven. “The word “forgiven” occurs 10 times in that chapter.” We know big sinners need forgiveness but sometimes we forget the smallest of sins need forgiveness also.  

Note that no one asked Jesus for forgiveness. He offered it while we were yet sinners, while we were even unaware that we had sinned against Him. Never lose sight of the reality that God sought us out. We did not seek Him and in coming to Him we were not being somehow more spiritual or more deserving but simply responding to His offer to forgive.

Notice also that nothing is asked of those who are forgiven. Forgiveness has never come with a price tag on it to the one being forgiven, only to the one forgiving. Jesus simply asks God to forgive us and all we need to do is accept that forgiveness. 

And He asked for forgiveness. Contemplate some of the things Jesus might have asked for. He might have asked that they would understand the folly of their decision and the ignorance by which they were acting. He might have asked that they would have wisdom, or that they might be changed so they would not act that way again. But no, He asked for forgiveness because that is man’s most urgent need. It was so He could provide forgiveness that He went to the Cross in the first place. Our greatest need is forgiveness and on the Cross, that was the first thing that Jesus had on His mind.

Finally note that while Jesus acknowledged that they did not know what they are doing, He did not excuse them on that basis. Ignorance of the law has never been a legitimate defense. Paul shared his personal testimony and wrote that before his experience on the road to Damascus he acted in ignorance as indeed all sinful men do. But ignorance is no excuse. Had ignorance been a legitimate excuse then the Cross would not have been necessary. Ignorant, yes, guiltless, never! The Cross was God’s way of making it legitimate for Him to forgive, for Him to show His love for us even though we had rebelled against Him and did not deserve it.

“Father, forgive them because they do not know what they are doing.” The Cross is all about forgiveness or as it is pictured in the Old Testament, atonement. Read Romans 6:23. Forgiveness is a gift but a gift that had to be purchased by God. All sin requires atonement. Major sins, minor sins, unintentional sins, they all require forgiveness. On the Cross Jesus lovingly paid for all sins. As we move through Lent, let’s take the time to contemplate the love of God that took Jesus to the Cross and the forgiveness He provided for us when He paid the penalty of our sins. We have been loved by God beyond measure and offered free forgiveness to all who ask. Our response to that love and what it offers is to love Him in return and seek to live as those who have been forgiven.