John 19:28-30 ESV

28 After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. 30 When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

Jesus has always been a thirst quencher.

From the moment we meet him as a boy in the temple (Luke 2:42), Jesus has always been about his father’s business. He has always enjoyed the Father’s fellowship. And the Father is in the living water business. So the Father has satisfied his thirst, as he has satisfied the World’s.

But this is a thirst he has never experienced before.

To the common observer, Jesus expresses a physical reality. He is dying. A crucified people died from a combination of suffocation, blood loss, and physical thirst. And his physical need is desperate now.

But the expression of human needs speaks to a greater reality. Christ can now be human, because everything is complete.

Jesus’s need to do his father’s work has always superseded everything else.

As he told his disciples: “My nourishment comes from doing the will of God, who sent me, and from finishing his work. (John 4:34 NLT)

But in this moment, that work seems comparatively mundane. He has thirsted to teach, to heal, to proclaim the Kingdom. Now he must conquer death. And he has always done God’s will with a profound awareness of God’s presence, a fellowship he is denied for the first time in his life as he takes on the sin of the world. So he thirsts also to rejoin the father.

But Jesus has always been the thirst quencher.

His initial miracle, turning ordinary water into good wine at the wedding at Cana in Galilee brought joy to a celebration, and honor to a host (John 2).

He offers a Samaritan woman living water by which “she will never thirst again”, revealing his identity to a woman despised and rejected for her race, gender, and reputation (John 4).

He tells people who have gathered for a feast “If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink.

Believe, he says, and Living Waters will flow out of your heart. He offers the Holy Spirit to all those who would believe (John 7).

When Peter uses his sword to cut off the ear of one of the men who has come to seize Jesus, Jesus says: “Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? (John 18).”

For better and for worse, the Father quenches Jesus’s thirst. And operating in his service, Jesus has always quenched it for others. And as much as he doesn’t want this cup of suffering, he accepts the father’s will: there is that which we must drink to achieve our destiny.

But now, at the cross, the Thirst Quencher thirsts.

And at this moment, the soldiers those whose role within the system is to contain, punish, torment, and execute, have compassion upon him. And offer him what they themselves used to quench their own thirst but also to deaden pain. It was cheap wine.

So the very people the system has placed to torment Jesus become those who have the opportunity to exercise compassion.

The very people who observers would identify as the bad guys, the same men who whipped and mocked Jesus, become agents of glory in the hands of God.

Jesus began his ministry at a wedding by turning common water into the best wine. And now he turns common wine into the best water, Living Water, symbolized by the water that spills forth when the soldiers pierce his side. But in so doing he also commissions these soldiers, and all of us, to continue the work that he has begun.

Jesus gave us the best wine. We gave him the cheapest.

But God still ordains that the cheapest wine, from the roughest men - the humblest resources, from the most unlikely source would be that which brings comfort in his hour of need.

And he says something simple yet profound to all humanity: my work is done. It’s now up to you. So use what you’ve got to give me glory.

A lot of us are sitting on gifts that we think aren’t good enough. Like the poor little drummer boy who believes he has nothing to offer, we withhold our praise or our service because we consider them unworthy of our audience. Not ready for primetime.

And God says to us: Play. Your. Drum.

He says to the Samaritan Woman: Give me your water.

He tells the working class and tormenting soldiers: I’m thirsty.

And he says to us for all time: It doesn’t matter how broken your past. It doesn’t matter how complicated your present. It doesn’t matter how humble your gift, or how little your faith.

Jesus says come! And give to me what you have. And I will use it. I will multiply it.

You will be part of the miracle.

You will be part of the blessing.

You will be part of the revival

You will be part of the revolution.

There is a thirst stirring in this house, stirring in the heart of you watching this online to identify with Christ and to do this work to which God is calling you.

It is a divine work. A miraculous work. A redemptive work A life defining work. A generational shifting work. And it requires all of us. Because he is raising us up for such a time as this.

Lent has been a season of preparation. 40 days preparing us to rise up into destiny. Because everything that happened on Friday night was a prelude to Sunday Morning. And on Sunday morning, everything changes.

Somebody here tonight is on the first day of a third day situation. And it looks dark now. And you’re thirsty now. And you still don’t think you’re ready for what’s next.

But as it is written, “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, and no mind has imagined what God has prepared for those who love him.” (1 Cor. 2:9) Cf Is. 64:4

So Buckle Up.

And if you don’t know him, or you’ve walked away from him tonight, there is a reason for your discontent. A reason for the thirst that troubles your soul even now.

You’ve tried to quench it with all kinds of idols. All kinds of substitutes. Drugs, Sex, Food, Social Media. None of it has worked. And some of it has left you in bondage. Addicted, miserable, and stuck.

Every thirst represents a real need and corresponds to a divine provision. And if you don’t know Jesus, or have left the well, if you are no longer allowing him to fill you for the work he’s created you to do, the person he’s created you to be, healed, forgiven, joyful, peaceful, alive, it is time to come home.

It’s time for all of us, in submission and adoration; in joy and expectation; former believers, believers, and believers yet to be; to look to God, to present our gifts, and declare with the Savior:

I Thirst.