Thirsting for God
Jesus's Fifth Word from the Cross
Dizo is the Greek word translated, I thirst. It is the fifth word of Jesus from the cross. How John introduces this word is important. Here’s the complete verse -
Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.”1
This verse marks a turning point in the crucifixion. The sacrifice is complete. The sin debt is paid in full. Using the metaphor of Old Testament sacrifice, just as the hands of the one making the sin sacrifice are placed on the animal whose blood is spilled, so God places the hands of a sinful world on the Lamb, Jesus.
Soon, Jesus, the sacrifice, will become the High Priest, sprinkling his blood on the mercy seat between the seraphim on the Ark of the Covenant.2
Jesus, knowing that the sacrifice is complete, utters his final three words from the cross. Words that are intimately connected: I thirst, It is finished, Father, into your hands I commit my spirit.3
It is crucial that we understand Jesus’s fifth word in light of the completed sacrifice for sin. Many teach that Jesus’s words here point to the thirst that sin brings. I’ve taught that myself, and there is some truth to it. We must, however, keep in mind that the sin sacrifice is complete. What that means is that the thirst of which Jesus speaks is not so much the thirst of sin as it is the thirst for God.
That brings us to the second phrase, “. . . so that Scripture would be fulfilled.” What Scripture? We don’t know. John doesn’t say. Psalm 42 comes to mind -
As the deer pants for streams of water,
so my soul pants for you, my God.
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God.
When can I go and meet with God?
My tears have been my food
day and night,
while people say to me all day long,
“Where is your God?4
There are several other passages of Scripture we could point to, but I tend to think that John has in mind Scripture as a whole. Water occupies a prominent place throughout both Old and New Testaments. God turns the water of the Nile to blood, demonstrating his power over Egypt’s gods. In the desert wilderness, God provides water from a rock for the thirsting Israelites. Ezekiel, describing the great temple that will replace the one destroyed by the Babylonians (and, for that matter, the temple destroyed by the Romans as well), sees a river of water flowing from the temple itself and watering fruit trees of all kinds that provide healing for the nations.5
Too numerous to list here are the many passages of Scripture describing life-giving, thirst-quenching water. But in this post, I want to call your attention to the water God provided for an Egyptian slave and her teenage son.
Hagar belonged to Abraham’s wife, Sarai. In many ways, the story of Hagar and how she was treated by Sarai is a metaphor for how Abraham’s physical descendants would view Gentiles, and if I may be so bold, how Abraham’s spiritual descendants often treat the weak and vulnerable among us.6
It is a familiar story. God promises Abraham and Sarai a son. Time passes, and as we so often do when it comes to the promises of God, Sarai decides to take matters into her own hands - always a prescription for disaster - and gives Hagar to Abraham to be the tool to provide the couple with a son. Hagar conceives and gives birth to Ishmael. Problem solved. Promise fulfilled. Right?
Not exactly.
Abraham is eighty-six when Ishmael is born. Thirteen years later, when Abraham is ninety-six, God appears to him and says, "Remember that promise I gave you and Sarai? Well, this time next year, Sarah will give birth to a son."7 One year later, Isaac is born.
Two years after that, according to most rabbinical teachings, Isaac is weaned, and Abraham celebrates his son’s passage from baby to child by throwing a party. All his workers and their wives are invited to the feast, the whole traveling caravan. A huge crowd comes together to celebrate Isaac’s entrance to childhood.
But there is always the jealous child, especially when that child feels, well, like a stepchild, a second-class citizen in the family. Sixteen-year-old Ishmael sees all the fuss being made over his half-brother, whose mother, unlike his, is not a slave but is, in fact, the matriarch of the entire caravan, and he mocks Isaac.
Sarah is incensed. She asserts her authority as matriarch and tells her husband, “Get rid of that Slave woman and her son, for that woman’s son will never share in the inheritance with my son Isaac.8
Maybe you’ve heard the phrase, “Happy wife, happy life.” I can’t help but wonder if Abraham isn’t the origin of that saying. At any rate, he demonstrates its truth, and so, reluctantly and heartbroken over the loss of his son, he sends Hagar and Ismael out alone into the desert.
Before long, their water is gone. Hagar, knowing that this is the end, leaves Ishmael in some shade and sits down a little ways off because she can’t bear to watch her son wither up and die, and she waits.
That’s when God calls out to her, opening her eyes to see a nearby well. Hagar and Ishmael are saved, and we read these words -
“God was with the boy as he grew up.”9
Salvation. That’s what this story is all about. Life-giving water for those dying from thirst. Hagar and Ishmael were mistreated and abandoned by God’s chosen ones. Neglected. Unpitied. Sent out to die. Left alone in a desert of death. But they were not alone. God was with them, and it was God who saved a mother and her son, as well as one of the largest people groups in our world today, from death.
From that day on, whenever Hagar or Ishmael grew thirsty, they thought of the God, who, in their thirst, gave them the water of life.
“Knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I thirst.”
Jesus understands the Hagars and Ishmaels of the world, those who are rejected, unloved, and abandoned so often by God’s own people.
This is why it is crucial that we see the cross as an expression of God’s love rather than God’s wrath. For God so loved the world. We love him because he first loved us. For God is love.10
Sin was atoned for on the cross: the sin of a world that abandons those with no status or social standing, those who are weak and powerless. And as we recognize and confess our own vulnerabilities and weaknesses, we will understand the heart of the one despised and rejected by his own people. The one who could have called twelve legions of angels for his own salvation but who chose instead to submit to those worldly powers who crush so many.
Knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, I thirst.
In Christ,
Dan
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John 19:28.
Hebrews 9:11-12.
John 19:28, 30, Luke 23:46.
Psalm 42:1-3.
The ultimate fulfillment of Ezekiel’s prophecy is found in the final chapters of Revelation, and the description of the New Jerusalem. It is there that we learn that “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” (Revelation 21:22.) See also Revelation 22:1-2.
Matthew 25:34-46.
Genesis 18:10. This is where Abram’s and Sarai’s names were changed to Abraham and Sarah.
Genesis 21:10.
Genesis 21:20.
John 3:16, 1 John 4:19, 4:16.