( I Thirst)
I THIRST
Jn. 19.28
“I Thirst”. From the cross is not the first time Jesus said this. In the 4th Chapter as he sits on the side of a well awaiting the woman that would soon be there, he prepares himself and presents the same statement: “Give me a drink”. Why did he want a drink? Because he was ‘Thirsty’.
WHAT:
Thirst Defined:
1. A sensation of dryness in the mouth and throat related to a need or desire to drink.
2. An insistent desire; a craving
WHY: is he thirsty?
1. Because he's a man and his body is dehydrating. His mouth and throat dry.
2. Because he's God and he desires, craves (thirst) for a fellowship that was broken in sin.
· When man sinned, it broke fellowship
· Now he becomes sin for us, and there’s a broken fellowship with God
3. Maybe Jesus Christ began to think about the future.
He began to think about the Paradise that lay ahead!
IT'S A PARADOX
- How God became a man and suffers at the hands of the creatures he created.
- How The Water (Living Water) as for ‘water’. (Jn 4)
- How the one who:
* created the oceans,
* commands every storm cloud,
* knows the number of rain drops that falls to the earth during any given storm,
* has such power that water stands at attention at his command (The Red Sea),
* Inundates the entire world at his will (The Flood),
* caused the rain cloud to close it’s doors and not another drop of rain falls when
he said. “Peace Be Still”., SAY, ‘I THIRST’?
He could have lifted his sacred brow toward heaven and a cloud would rain down upon him, not only to cool his agony but quench his thirst. Why didn’t he do it? He could have taken the ‘physical water’ but he would still been ‘Thirsty’.
Why?
Because he was both Man and God. Fully man. Fully God. Fully infinite. Fully infinite. Human nature and Divine nature.
Therefore, the physical water could have satisfied the Man side of him, but not the God side of him. He would have still been thirsty. The God side of him needed something more.
He needed something that was permanent, not temporary. Something that was lasting, not short-lived.
WHO: is he thirsty for?
- THE FATHER
Do you suppose…
…could it be possible…
…that as Christ hung on that Cross…
…that as Christ experienced separation from God the Father for the very first and only time…
…do you suppose that His soul was thirsting for God and not just for some wine vinegar soaked on a sponge?
- YOU AND ME
Jesus wasn’t talking about physical water.
For the Jews had another way of using the word “water.”
They often spoke of the “thirst” of the “soul” for God; and they often spoke of quenching this thirst with “living water.”
WHERE: is his ‘satisfaction’ coming from?
· Bridging the gap between heaven and earth. Man and God
The Crucifixion
WHAT THEN?
At the heart of all this, there is the fundamental truth that in the human heart there is a thirst for something that only Jesus Christ can satisfy!!!
Yeah, this goes way beyond just regular old thirst.
We are all thirsty!
And we are all going to try and quench our thirst with something.
\\ Lots of young people try and quench their thirst with drugs and alcohol, but they find themselves even more thirsty and unhappy than before…
Other people try to quench their thirst with big paying jobs, big expensive houses, big fancy cars…
…yeah, we like BIG…
…‘Cause we have got a BIG thirst…
…but no matter what we do we are always thirsty again, are we not?
\\ Sometimes, as Christians, we miss... And we find ourselves becoming thirsty.
Perhaps, we have started to become kind of “spotty” in our church attendance…
…and we find that we are thirsty for something…
…we are not as satisfied as we once were.
If we are this way, then TURN TO...THE LIVING WATER. If you already have, but drifted, TURN BACK. Because everytime we leave him. Every time we drift from him. Every time we choose to go our own way and do our own thing, He says it all over again: I Thirst......For You.