Christ's Agony
Seven Last Sayings of Christ • Sermon • Submitted • Presented
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Christ’s Agony
Christ’s Agony
John 19:28 “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.””
The irony of the disposition of Jesus is that He hangs between two (2) men who specialized in taking while He specialized in giving.
He gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, a voice to the dumb, banquets to the multitude, cleansing to the leprous, walking to the lame, His hands to the cross, feet to the nails, His garments to the soldiers, forgiveness to those that crucified Him, His mother to John, His Life to the World.
Yet we witness Him suffering and agonizing in these final moments, exclaiming, “I Thirst!”
Physical Thirst
Thirst is a signal from the body which compels us to drink water so that we may survive or live. Amazingly there is no fluid that will quench thirst as water does. You need water if you are on the verge of dehydration or death. Kool-Aid won’t do it; soda won’t do it; milk won’t do it; contrary to popular belief, Bacardi won’t do it, Hennessey won’t do it, no crown Royal won’t do it. You need water.
The Body Needs Water- Our bodies are ⅔ water. The body absorbs cold water faster than hot water. By the time you are 70 years old, you will have required 1½ million gallons of water.
Studies show that increasing water consumption can decrease fat deposits. Water is a natural appetite suppressant. If you lose 2% of your body’s water supply, your energy will decrease by 20%. With a 10% decrease in water, you will be unable to walk, and with a 20% decrease – you’re dead.
Christ was Physically Thirsty- He needed water. They beat Him, mocked Him, and knocked bloody holes in His body. He was placed on the cross at 9:00 a.m. and hung there for three hours as the sun beat against his broken and bloody body. At 12:00 p.m., a cloak of darkness settled on the hill of Calvary. For another three hours, Jesus hung as the remedy to mankind’s sin. At 3:00 p.m., this darkness was dispelled as quickly as it had appeared, and the sun's intense heat began to bake Jesus again. Yes, He was thirsty!
The only thing He was offered was vinegar. Which raises the question, what will you give Jesus?
Certainly, those that benefited during His tenure on earth could have attempted to give Jesus a drink of water. The lame man, the blind man whom He gave sight, couldn’t Bartimaus have given Christ a cool drink? But the question still stands what will you give Jesus? He was physically thirsty.
Spiritual Thirst
Interestingly enough, He cries out, “I Thirst” after He had felt forsaken.
Now you must remember that Jesus is on the cross for us all and suffering for us all. He is dying with the weight of all of our sins, and sin separates us from God. So perhaps, He felt empty.
I can’t help but believe, then, that some spiritual thirst must have been involved. Because of this separation from God, perhaps, He was thirsting for His/our relationship with God. After all, He did say in Matthew 5:6, “Blessed are they that Hunger and Thirst…He told a woman at a well that if you drink the water that I have, you’ll never be the same.
Yes, it appears Jesus wanted to reconnect to His water source. He understood now what it meant to be dying in misery. I want to submit to you today that if you’re separated from God because of your sin, you aren’t living; you’re dying in misery.
Only One Remedy
Just as there is but one remedy for physical thirst, there is but one remedy for a spiritual thirst.
However, we must note that Jesus never mentioned His thirst until after He knew God’s Will had been accomplished. Look at the “A clause” of this scripture. It says, “After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished…”
With Jesus, God’s Will was First and Primary in His Life. It was only after He had attended to His Father’s Business that He turned His attention to the needs of His Body.
It was after Jesus had done the will of God in fasting for 40 days in the wilderness that afterward He hungered, showing us that man shall not live by bread alone but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God.
It was after Jesus had ministered to the woman at the well that He ate bread, saying to His disciples, “I have meat to eat that ye know not of.” He said, “My meat is to do the will of Him that sent Me and to finish His work.”
With Jesus, doing the will of God came first, and then came the consideration of His life.
And so, to us, He says, “Take no thought saying, What shall we eat? Or what shall we drink? Or Wherewithal shall we be clothed? … For your heavenly Father knows that you have need of all these things. But seek you first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added unto you.”
Only after taking care of everyone else did Jesus think about Himself.
First, He took care of the need of the crowd: “Father, forgive them...”
He ministered to the thief on His right hand: “Today shalt thou be with Me in paradise.”
He took care of His mother: “Woman, behold thy son; behold thy mother.”
He ministered to those suffering the pains of alienation from God: “My God, My God, why hast Thou forsaken me?”
And now, after ministering to the needs of others first while dying, He turns to His own needs and said, “I thirst.”
He told us when He began His ministry that “the Son of man came not to be ministered unto, but to minister, and to give His life a ransom for many.”
This teaches us that only after, we have totally submitted to the will of God can our lives be complete, and our thirst be quenched.
But you know what yawl, the real question is not what Jesus was thirsting for, but what are we thirsting for?
I don’t know about you but one of these old days I want to see Jesus. I want to do God’s will. I want to make it to the other side Story of two (2) poets standing at the cross…
There is a fountain filled with blood, Drawn from Immanuel's veins; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood,
Lose all their guilty stains: Lose all their guilty stains, Lose all their guilty stains; And sinners, plunged beneath that flood, Lose all their guilty stains.
The dying thief rejoiced to see That fountain in his day; And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away: Wash all my sins away, Wash all my sins away; And there may I, though vile as he, Wash all my sins away.
The blood that Jesus shed for me
Way back on Calvary
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power
It reaches to the highest mountain
It flows to the lowest valley
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power
It soothes my doubts and calms my fears
And it dries all my tears
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its power
It reaches to the highest mountain
It flows to the lowest valley
The blood that gives me strength
From day to day
It will never lose its powerI know this may be old to yawl but its new to me, I know it was the Blood that washed