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Reflections on the Seven Words of Jesus from the Cross: 5 I Thirst

I thirst. John 19.28 (https://www.biblegateway.com NRSVA)
I thirst. It’s a simple statement, apparently a request for a drink. But nothing is simple in the Passion story.
Matthew and Mark also report that Jesus was offered the chance to drink from a sponge soaked in a mixture of wine and vinegar, but they interpret this as a misunderstanding of Jesus’ cry of dereliction from the cross. The bystanders presume Jesus is calling on Elijah to relieve his torment and the wine soaked sponge is the only thing they have to offer. Matthew and Mark don’t say explicitly that Jesus accepted the invitation to drink - which they believe was unsolicited, anyway. And Luke omits the cry of abandonment, and the sponge, altogether. Perhaps for him it is just too upsetting.
But for John it is essential that Jesus drinks the water mixed with wine. He is doing it very deliberately, in John’s opinion, not just because he really is hot and thirsty, but in order to fulfil scripture so that his death can be made perfect.
So what scriptures could Jesus have in mind? In Deuteronomy 28.48 the remedy for sin is that we shall find we must ‘serve our enemies... in hunger and thirst, in nakedness and lack of everything.’ If Jesus’ death is remedying our sins, this is the punishment he must take upon himself.
Or Jesus could be talking not about physical thirst but about his spiritual thirst to be reunited by God instead of feeling abandoned. Psalm 42.2 says, ‘My soul thirsts for... the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?’ And Psalm 63.1 says, ‘My soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.’
Or John could be conscious that Jesus is living out, in his own death, the words of Psalm 22, ‘My mouth is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to my jaws…’?
Whatever, the words ‘I thirst’ mean, one thing is clear. We do not have to thirst in quite the same way. In John 7.37-8 Jesus says, ‘Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink. As the scripture has said, “Out of the believer’s heart shall flow rivers of living water.”’

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