I Thirst - Joel Schrock

All right, This morning, I would like to talk a

bit about a short statement that has been on my

mind for a while, and I'm not exactly sure why

it has been or I've not been exactly sure why

or where to go with it. Could have something to

do with just coming through Easter, the Easter season, as

this was a statement made by Jesus on the Cross,

but I do want to look at it in larger,

broader context. The different parts of the service. I guess

the service in different ways you could say, flowed really

well with this devotions that Dad just had about our

need of the Gospel, the good News, the song that

we just sang TJ before. There in the middle we

come to the might not be so obvious how that fits,

but maybe by the end end of the sermon it will.

And somewhere in here I'll try to inject Gary's commentary

on Norman's devotions, as that fit quite well. So this

statement that I've been thinking of is a short statement.

It's shorter than some phrases, but it's not a phrase,

and for you English scholars, it is not even a

dependent clause. There are no modifiers needed, no adjectives or

adverbs to spice things up. No compliments, nothing receiving action

or anything like that. The statement is just a simple

subject and a verb, and it is complete, it's it's powerful,

it's very human. You could say it's a visceral statement

if you know, it's something deep inside of us. And

that is the statement that Jesus made on the cross.

I thirst, and that is the title of the message

this morning. You can turn to John nineteen. I won't

actually be reading many verses from here. We just as

I mentioned, came through the Easter Easter season and could

say and different messages and talks about some of the

things that Jesus faced, the temptations of suffering, the death

and then his glorious resurrection and victory. So not going

to go through a lot of that in detail, but

having that as a context and understanding that Jesus was

at this time experiencing intense, unbearable suffering. Let's jump into

John nineteen, verses twenty eight and twenty nine. Now was

understand it Jesus. The things that Jesus said on the cross,

they're not all found in all the gospels. You kind

of piece it together, and it seems that this statement

was made toward the end, and so I'll read starting

in verse twenty eight. After this, Jesus, knowing that all

things are now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled,

saith I thirst. Now there was set a vessel full

of vinegar, and they filled a sponge with vinegar and

put it up upon Hissom and put it to his mouth. Now,

I said, I wouldn't spend a lot of time on

the details here, but there are just a few points

that I'd like to make care regarding this event before

moving on. Jesus knew that all was or was being accomplished.

His work on Earth was coming to an end. He

was drinking the cup, the bitter cup, that he asked

the Father if there was any different way to do this.

His ministry was over, the three year ministry, the betrayal,

the cruel treatment, all the things that Jesus knew would

happen had happened, and he was ready to die. And Jesus,

even in this state, knew that scripture must be fulfilled. Now,

I think an exact count's pretty tough, and maybe somebody

has it here, but from what I read, a conservative

estimate would be that well over three hundred prophecies were

fulfilled in Jesus' life and death, which in and of

itself is incredible divine. Jesus, with knowledge, knowingly and the

Roman soldiers unknowingly, fulfilled a prophecy here found in Psalm

sixty nine, verse twenty one. They gave me also gall

for my meat, and in my thirst that gave me

vinegar to drink. And the soldiers they didn't know about

that verse. I'm pretty sure Jesus said. And I imagine

with whatever strength he had, some would say, well, he

maybe wanted his you know, his his mouth, his lips

to be wet so he could he could speak the

next the next things he had to say. But I

imagine he cried out, I thirst. And we'll come back

to this as kind of the main thing we want

to focus on here. But but just point out right

now that this was both I believe, a true human

cry of thirst and one of completion of prophecy. Here

prophecy completion. The next words at least and John, are

it is finished now, Jesus. Another another thing here. Jesus

had earlier refused to drink the wine that was offered him,

but that was a different that was different wine. This

is called vinegar in this translation, wine and some others.

But that wine is a wine, as I understand that

that's offered to many of the people being crucified, is

mixed with said mingled with murr, and as I understand

that they used murr as a bit of a narcotic.

It was a pain. I don't know, suppressor h And

as you can imagine, this wasn't just out of the

gentle goodness of the hearts of these Roman soldiers. From

from what I can tell from different places, I looked

this was. This was used more as a way of,

you know, they could torture somebody longer, with less interruptions

and noises. But Jesus turned that away. He fully experienced

what was coming to him. And now is Jesus cried out.

It seems that perhaps a soldier reached for his own cheap,

watered down, common people vinegary wine. And it is thought

that this is perhaps the wine that the soldiers brought

to pass the time. This process could last a long

time in some cultures and that practice crucifixion as a

method of execution. I don't know that they nailed people

to cross, as this was not the Romans. But if

you survived crucifixion for three days, you could go free.

So this is not a short process generally. But Jesus

here we can see fully man, a common man here.

And not only that, we know he was counted as

a criminal, being crucified between two thieves. I believe there's

symbolism likely here in the fact that they used hissop

to put the vinegar to jesus mouth, as the Israelites

use hissop to put the blood to the door of

the posts passover, and Jesus, we know is our door

to salvation. Now back to this statement I first, you know,

one of the earliest, perhaps the earliest I don't know,

but one of the earliest heresies after the time of

Christ was that okay, Jesus was divine, he was God,

but he must not have been fully human with flesh

and and so there was this movement pretty early on

this heresy that Jesus was not truly mad as we are.

But jesus proclamation I thirst is one of the most

human statements there is. Thirst is a powerful motivator. It's

an early warning sign system in our body so that

we don't get dehydrated. Psalm twenty two, verse fifteen gives

a further description. Here, my strength is dried up like

a pop shard, and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws,

and Thau has brought me into the dust of death.

Simply put, dehydration happens when we lose more fluid than

we're taking in. And Jesus no doubt had lost a

lot of blood up to this point. The crown of thorns,

the flogging, the nailing to the cross. It's likely he

hadn't had a drink since the last supper. Dehydration, severe thirst,

we could say, is one of the leading suspected causes

for death by crucifixion. As I mentioned, this is often

a fairly lengthy process, and there wasn't like one reason

people died generally, it was often a combination of things.

And Jesus was literally facing an unbearable thirst. Now, if

i'd ask you if any of you have been thirsty before,

I imagine it all yep, especially young children when it's bedtime.

There's a lot of thirst about them. Have any of

you had your You don't need to raise your hand

or anything, but your mouth dried up and your tongue

stuck to the roof of your mouth too. As described now,

I've had nothing like that kind of thirst. But I

will tell story, and I apologized for repeating myself to

some of you, maybe all of you, some pieces of

it at least. But when I was eleven years old

or twelve, I actually don't remember now. How many eleven

and twelve year old boys are they here? Stand up?

I want to see how old I was then, somewhere

in that neighborhood. Okay, I thought I was older than that. Okay,

thank you, you can sit down. But when I was

your age, I went on a trip with my aunt Helen,

and it was August, so this was it, and towards

the end of summer, field burning was still happening. She

had respiratory issues, so she tried to get out of

the valley for a good chunk of August. There for

a few years, and I went with her that year

for part of it, not all of it. She also

rafted down the graind Canyon and I didn't get to

do that, but we had plans to hike a canyon

that I had never heard of before, Havasu Canyon. This

canyon is where the Havasupai Indians live still have a

town down there called the Havasupai, and the Havasupai River

runs through the canyon. At some places. The only way

to get to the town was, and I imagine still is.

I don't know, I haven't been back. You could hike,

you could ride a horse, or you could fly on

a helicopter. That was the most money, and from the

today had a helicopter pad at the top. And in

the town. Now there's the campground that we were going

as a couple miles past the town. Those are the

three ways to get there. Still at least then their

mail and this was partly just for breaking rights. The

mule train still took the mail in and out there.

Our plan was to leave early in the morning when

the desert was cool and with bottles of water. They

were at least partially frozen, so you know, to preserve

some cold water through the heat of the of you know,

this was August, this was Arizona. But as it turned out,

we made it to the trailhead at eleven am, one

hour short of high noon, and our water was cool

at best, and we had no gatorade or other drink.

Selector lights, and we were packing a lot, and we

did not have pack horses. We had a big tent

we had we were not aware of all the nifty

gear and maybe some of that was later, but like

big sleeping bags, we took propane. No, I'm not sure

exactly what it was. I just know that, like the

skillet we cooked on was about this big, and we

didn't have those little jet boil things that you have now,

and you know, three changes of close. I don't remember

what all we took, but I do remember standing at

the top of the canyon thinking this is heavy and

looking at the switchbacks going down. So we took off.

We took off down the switchbacks and that was bad enough,

but that was a pretty short stretch. Then you're in

the bottom of the canyon and in the desert heat

there blocked in. There's not a lot of depending which

were the wind's blowing. It's really still not a lot

of breeze. And the worst part was actually not the switchbacks.

It was mile after mile of sand in the bottom

of that canyon. And we were exhausted, we were hot, tired,

We were trying to meter the water that we had

and guessing how far we made it. So we saw

a rock out cropping and we'll here's some shade, so

we took off our packs lay down in the shade.

We estimated we must be around halfway on this ten

mile trip ten mile height, and pretty soon an old

Indian man comes riding by a horse and we're flagging down.

We said, hey, how far from the top are we?

How far do we have to go? Chuckles? And he said,

you're not very far at all, maybe a mile, and

he took off. And it was at that moment that

I began to wonder about making it out of the canyon.

There were enough people and horses, you know, occasionally going by,

and I figured we would But so we headed out

again and tried to conserve the water that was turning

from cool to warm to hot. And in my eleven

year old wisdom, I calculated that if we had chocolate,

we could make hot chocolate, but I didn't know if

that would quench the thirst any better than hot water,

so we didn't try that. Helen ran out of water

a bit before we got anywhere close to other water,

and I saved a little bit back in case of emergency,

and we we were thirsty This was not an exaggeration.

Our mouths were dry. It is the thirstiest I have

ever been. And then in the distance, eventually this was

not a mirage. We could see some green, which meant

good things. But what was interesting is before our other

senses picked anything up, we could we could smell water.

I don't think I ever had had that. It was

probably the trees. I don't know what all it was,

but it was a You could smell it quite a

ways before we got there. And then we could hear

the river running through, and finally we could see it.

Beautiful crystal clear river that flows through and makes miles

of an oasis in the bottom of a desert canyon,

three beautiful waterfalls, and eventually it runs into the Grand Canyon,

the Colorado River and swirls into that chocolate brown river now,

and it was cold water. Everybody told us this water

is cold. They hadn't been to the Willamette River. But

it was cool. It was cool water, and Helen would

not let me drink it because she was afraid I'd

get sick from drinking it. But we did celebrate by

finishing my water. And we were still aways from town,

but at that point we knew we made it. There

was water to drink at least and finally at eight

in my memory, at eight forties, this is twenty minutes

before the last store closed. We got to town and

we tanked up on cold water and gatorade. I think

it's the first time I drank gatorade, and it was

the best tasting taste that I tasted. And but we

still had a couple of miles to the campground and

it was getting dark. That was still painful, tiring, treacherous work,

but we no longer had the most debilitating problem from

the day, and that was thirst. At that point, we

could do it now if we ever go hiking. My

wife thinks that I take along plenty of liquids. But

I'll tell you, and I tell her, if you've ever

experienced thirst like that, you never want to repeat it.

And I think there may be some spiritual application there.

If you experience a thirst like that, you know what

it's like to have that thirst quenched. You never want

to go back to that. Now. If you don't believe

me still, that thirst is one of the most powerful

forces in our human life. There's an old example. I

don't this is taken roughly from an example, I remember

ray comfort used to give, and so imagine, since we're

in the desert, imagine with me that you are in

a hot desert in the middle of the day, and

pick your day. I mean, this could be Arizona in August,

it could be Death Valley, the Sahara, and pick your desert.

But it's one hundred and twenty degrees and whatever wind

there is just feels like a furnace sapping every bit

of moisture out of your body. Broke down and you're

trying to get out and get some help. See a

mirage in the distance, But every time you get to

the top of the next hill, it's just more burning

sand as far as the eye can see. Your tongue

is sticking to the roof of your mouth. It's hard

to swallow, and you can't form words anymore. Eventually you

fall down onto all fours and the burning sand leaves

blisters on your hands. If at that moment somebody stood

in front of you and in one hand he held

the most valuable diamond. It's a blue diamond, it's a

beautiful diamond. It's worth over two hundred million dollars. I think,

what all you could do was two hundred million dollars

and the freedom you would have. And in the other hand,

he held a glass of crystal clear cold water. Which

would you choose? If you had any mental capacity left,

you would despise the riches and drink the water. Why

because without the water you don't live. And what good

is a quarter billion dollars to a dying man. Thirst

is a powerful human experience and motivator. Now back to

Jesus saying I thirst. To think of the irony of

that statement. You know. The other another major heresy that

came along not too long later is that, well, Jesus

actually isn't fully God, not truly God? And I heard

a well and again this is in my sort of

childhood memory, so I think this is acri. I believe

this was that those Bible conference used to happen. I

believe it was a Harisburg and a well respected Mennonite

evangelist was talking about at that moment, Jesus between heaven

and Earth, between life and death. He if I remember

I made this statement, he didn't think that he was

either fully God or human at that moment. I don't

at all accuse that man of heresy. But I believe,

and I believe that the Bible would tell us that

Jesus was indeed fully both the whole time. As someone said,

his humanity did not diminish his deity, and his deity

did not diminish his humanity. And so let's just think

about who Jesus is, not just who Jesus was as

a man, but who Jesus is is the I am,

so that goes back forever. Who is Jesus John one,

verses one through three. So in the beginning was the Word,

and the word was with God, and the word was God.

The same was in the beginning with God. All things

were made by him, and without him was not anything

made that was made. And so Jesus is the Word.

And later on it talks about being the flesh, that

becoming flesh and dwelling among us, obviously referencing Jesus. Jesus

is the word that in Genus's one verse nine said,

let the waters under the heaven be gathered together into

one place. He's the same God who made the mist

to come up out of the garden of Eden to

water everything, and sent the three rivers running out. It's

the same God who sent a flood to cover the

entire earth. It's the same God that parted the Red Sea,

the Jordan River and caused water to flow out of rocks.

It's the same Jesus that took water and turned it

into wine. It's the same Jesus that commanded the raging

waves to be still, that walked on the water, had

complete control over the water that he created. The same

Jesus met the woman at the well. And I'm going

to read a few verses from John chapter four here

relating to that, and we'll come back to one of

these verses later. Here John chapter four, starting in verse ten,

Jesus answered and said unto her. Read through verse fourteen,

starting in verse ten here of John four, Jesus answered

and said, unto her. If thou knewest the gift of

God and who it was that saith unto thee give

me to drink, thou wouldst asked of him, and he

would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir,

thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep.

From whence then hast thou that living water? Art thou

greater than our father Jacob, which gave us the well

and drank there of himself and his children and his cattle.

Jesus answered and said, unto her, whosoever drinketh of this

water shall thirst again this water at the well. But

whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him

shall never thirst. That the water that I shall give

him shall be in him a well of water springing

up into everlasting life. So Jesus clearly switches from the

physical to the spiritual here. This Jesus, who's fully god

fully human here, who had complete control over water, who

was the source of the living water, said I thirst,

and he meant it. One interesting side note here, I

believe this is accurate that of the seven sayings recorded,

of the sayings that Jesus said on the cross, I

believe this is the only one that directly addresses his

pain and discomfort. You go through and you read it's

about other people. Forgive them, John, here's your mother, well, Mary,

here's your son. Those sorts of things there was. Jesus

did ask why the father had forsaken him. That's not

so much the physical discomfort. So what did Jesus mean

when he said I thirst? So I believe as we've

covered that Jesus meant he was literally dying the thirst.

I also think that Jesus may have felt a deep,

perhaps unquenchable, raging, emptiness that was beyond the physical in

that moment or those those hours perhaps on the cross,

Jesus not only he suffered death, he suffered darkness, separation

from the Father, that is at least how he felt,

and an unquenchable thirst. Jesus' deepest thirst, perhaps his longing,

was his longing for a restoration with the relationship, with

his relationship with the Father. And we see that before

he even made it to the garden of Gethsemane, when

John seventeen, verse five, he prayed, and now a father,

glorify me with thine own self, with the glory which

I had with Thee before the world was And so

we see this longing for something that was not evident

at the time. This was a relationship that was full

of beauty and glory. And this is a relationship that

was not marred by jesus sin, not by his sin,

but by our sin. And it is certainly touched by suffering.

And so what does this, what does this mean for us? What?

What what can we take from this? There are three

things that I thought of as I as I thought

about what this meant when Jesus said I thirst, What

was he experiencing? And what do we experience in our lives?

The first obvious one is the physical thirst. We talked

about that quite a bit. And the second, I believe,

and I'm sure there's more. I'm sure they could be

worded better, but these are the one. These are what

I thought of, a parched separation from God and those

near and dear to Him and in our case, to us.

And then a third one third thirst that I think

we read about here is a holy longing for spiritual refreshment.

So the first one, as I said, physical thirst, we

touched on that quite a bit. We all know how

refreshing it is to get our thirst quenched. We all

know that if we don't, we will wither away and die.

And we also know that no matter how often we

quench our thirst, we will be thirsty again. Do we

know what it is like to thirst for God? Do

we know what it's like to have our thirst quenched?

Have you been in the desert with parched lips and

your tongue sticking to the roof of your mouth, and

have you had your thirst quenched? And if you have,

I would argue that you never want to be in

that position again. And this brings us to the second

one that I think we see here with Jesus, and

that is this parched separation from God and man. More

than just a casual thirst. I believe that having this parched,

dying thirst could be for us a separation from God,

could be a separation from and with our relations, from

our spouse, rebellion to our parents, hatred for our brother,

jealousy of our sister. These things leave a deep void

in our lives, a deep thirst in need of quenching.

Jesus was facing the emptiness of being forsaken by all,

both God and man. At least that is the way

he felt. He cried out, My God, My God, why

hast thou forsaken me? Jesus keenly felt that stark separation

from the Father as he hung on the cross, and

Jesus wherever the Father was at the time jesus apparent separation.

His feeling of separation from the Father was not brought

about by his own misdeeds, but by the sins of

mankind us, and to think have I have you ever

been cut off from the presence of God by our sins?

Cut off from the presence of God. Remember that if

we are facing a separation from God, it is by

our own doing, not his. Jesus now stands at the door, knocks,

but we have to open the door. And Jesus was

facing the empty boid. I believe these things leave a

They can leave a thirst, avoid of emptiness, of being misunderstood, betrayed, denied,

forsaken by even those closest to him. This is the

only gospel as far as I can tell, where the

words I thirst are are written. We know that John

was an eye witness. Jesus spoke to John from the cross.

John and his writing said, I saw this happen. Don't

know if the other disciples were there or not, but

we do know that Jesus was forsaken by those close

to him. I believe we could all we could all

think of a time we have faced the thirst, a

feeling of void in our lives, the pangs when we're

not understood. Maybe there's gossip going around about us. Maybe

it seems that our family, our friends have turned their

backs on us, or haven't been there when we need

them the most. I believe that we could all say

some point in our life for various reasons. I thirst,

I have a painful void in my life that needs filled,

and that brings us to a holy the third one,

a holy longing for spiritual refreshmen. So there is a

side where we are told to thirst after God, to

desire the word of God, to long for the sweet

communion and fellowship with God, to pray not as the

proud Pharisee, but as a humble sinner that has found repentance,

to come boldly to the throne of grace, and to

communicate with God as the friend that he is, abba father,

that daddy, that Papa, that that relationship, to long for

a heavenly home, realizing that we're pilgrims and strangers. Here

and again we see that. I believe in the prayer

in before the Garden of Gsemine, when Jesus asked for

that relationship to be restored with his father, that longing

to have that sweet fellowship that he had had, And

we're told, we are told in the Sermon on the Mountain,

believe this is the fourth thing that Jesus lists Matthew

five verse six, that we are too hunger and thirst

after righteousness, and if we do, we will be filled.

And I was, I was, I was thinking about that.

It's important to desire righteousness to be filled. We will

be filled by something. And then Gary so eloquently stood

up here after Norman's devotions and said something to the

fat to the effect that we have a void. But

if we fill it with the wrong thing, death is sure.

Did I quote close to Acre? All right? And I

think that's exactly right. We can look back to Psalm

forty two. I'll read the first two verses as the

heart panteth after the water brook, So pantof my soul

after the o God. My soul thirsteth for God, for

the living God. When shall I come and appear before God?

And so we get the picture here. A heart, a deer,

let's say, a graceful animal, capable of great speed and agility.

If you're going to keep that thing out of your garden,

you put up a high fence. But it's been running

and maybe at a danger, maybe out of fear, who knows,

But he's been running, and this graceful, strong animal is

panting it's looking for a place to get a drink.

And this is a picture of us. This is the

extent to which we should thirst after God. When shall

I come in up here before God? And jumping back

to John again, John four, and this is I read

this verse earlier. This is a woman at the well.

But I want to read verse fourteen of chapter four again.

But whosoever this is Jesus speaking, But whosoever drinketh of

the water that I shall give him shall never thirst.

But the water that I shall give him shall be

in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.

So if we drink this water, and the reason we

drink is because we have a need. We're thirsty. Jesus

knew that. And if we drink of this water, the

picture is given to us of a spring water with energy.

Sorry about that water that never stops coming running forth,

It's continuous. I don't know how much to make of this,

But noticing the King James version, it says whosoever drinketh

of the water, and I believe it doesn't mean that

we come to Jesus, we repent of our sins. We

drink of that life giving water, and then we just

go on and live however we want. I believe it

means that we drink continuously. We continue drinking. You don't

just drink once and live a life of sin. We

continuously drink in the goodness and grace of God and

his word. And we will never have that parched, empty

void in our lives. That nature. Again, it's more from

John John seven, verses thirty seven to thirty nine. In

that last day, that great in the last day, that

great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying,

if any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink.

He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said,

out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.

And then in parentheses we have but this you spake

of the spirit which they that believed on him should receive.

For the Holy Ghost was not yet given, because that

Jesus was not yet glorified. And so here again Jesus

gives the invitation, come come unto me and drink. Believe

in Jesus and the work that He has now done

for us. And not only will the water be a

well springing up in us, it will flow out as

a river of living water. The Holy Spirit will not

only live in us. It will be evident through us,

will be evident to others. Revelation twenty one, verse five says,

and I'll read five through seven. And he that sat

upon the throne said, behold, I make all things new.

And he said, unto me, right, for these words are

true and faithful. And he said, unto me, it is done.

I am Alpha and Omega the beginning and end. I

will give unto him that is a thirst of the

fountain of the water of life, freely, freely, He that

overcome us shall inherit all things. And I will be

his God, and he shall be my son. So this

is an invitation. If you are thirsty, he says, come,

if you have a void in your life, come, that's

a directional invitation. Come to Jesus. If you are in darkness,

Come if you do not have peace in your heart,

if there is fear in your heart, come, if you

are running, come, if you're tired and panting. Come the

Alpha and Omega is waiting. He makes all things new.

He grants you life. You will inherit all things, and

you will not only never thirst again. He will be

your God and you will be his child. In closing,

going to read from the last chapter in the Bible,

two verses from Revelation twenty two. I'm going to read

verse one. And he showed me a pure river of

water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding out of the

throne of God and the Lamb. So that's what's there,

the river, the water of life, clear as crystal, proceeding

from the throne of the Lamb Jesus. And verse seventeen says,

and the Spirit and the bride say, come and let

him that heareth, say come and notice this next part.

And let him that is a thirst come, and whosoever

will let him take of the water of life freely.

So here this is an invitation for the thirsty. It's

an invitation for whosoever will to come, drink and live.

God bless you. Let's have us all