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Jeremiah 2:11-13 But my people have changed their glory for something that does not profit. 12 Be appalled, O heavens, at this, be shocked, be utterly desolate, says the LORD, 13 for my people have committed two evils: they have forsaken me, the fountain of living water, and dug out cisterns for themselves, cracked cisterns that can hold no water.
John 19:28-29 28 Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” 29 A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.
I Am Thirsty
A small child is sent to bed by his father.
Five minutes later…. “Da-ad….” “What?”
“I’m thirsty. ……Can you bring drink of water?”
“No. You had your chance…. Lights out.”
Five minutes later: “Da-aaaad…..””WHAT?”
“I’m THIRSTY. Can I have a drink of water??”
“I told you NO!”…. If you ask again, ….I’ll have to spank you!!”
Five minutes later……”Daaaa-aaaad…..””WHAT!”
“When you come in to spank me, …..can you bring a drink of water?”
Human beings are dependent on water, it is necessary for life. Here are some facts about our need for water. The human body is 2/3 water. I bet most of you have heard that before. Here’s a fact that’s new for me though. Did you know that by the time you are seventy you will have required over 25,000 gallons of water. That’s a pretty impressive statistic!
If you loose 2% of your body’s water supply, your energy will decrease by 20%. A 10% decrease in water, you will be unable to walk, and a 20% decrease – you’re dead.
Well, I think you get the point. And what is true of the physical is also true of the spiritual. Because God has made you with a spirit, soul, and body that get thirsty, if you fail to satisfy that thirst, your spirit, soul, and body become dehydrated. Do you know where to look for satisfaction? Look to Jesus, the spring of living water.
Have you ever been thirsty? Really thirsty? Walking across a desert without water thirsty? I think we’ve seen it in movies or cartoons but most of us probably haven’t experienced it. We’ve all had normal thirst so we have an idea of what it’s like. Jesus went beyond normal thirst on the cross. The beatings and flogging Jesus had received would have caused great blood loss and with blood loss comes enormous thirst. Jesus hung on the cross for six hours, getting more and more thirsty. By this time His thirst must have been extreme. His mouth was dried up and His tongue was stuck to the roof of His mouth.
Jesus cries out, “I am thirsty!” Only one word in Aramaic but it would have been forced out by a parched tongue through dry, cracked lips. Someone raised up a sponge soaked in sour wine. Jesus, who turned the water into the finest wine at Cana, thirsts. He is given the cheapest of drinks, watered down sour wine, the drink of the soldiers and poor.
Now some of you may be saying, “I thought they gave Him vinegar on the cross?” Some of our translations use the word vinegar here and people have asked if this was a further insult and torment or were they actually trying to help Him. The Greek word used here refers to sour wine or wine vinegar which was a popular drink among the lower classes who couldn’t afford anything else. It is not the vinegar we use today but was a watered down cheap wine. They were willing to give Him wine to see what else He would say. In Matthew and Mark we are told that the crowd thought He was calling Elijah to come down and save Him. It wasn’t compassion that led them but curiosity. They wanted to see if Elijah would come so they wanted Him to be able to call out. No, it wasn’t compassion.
Jesus Christ, Savior of the world, the long-awaited Messiah, the source of living water hangs on the cross and thirsts.
The source of living water. What is living water? In biblical times there were two ways to get water. You could dig a cistern that would trap rainwater. The cisterns were dug out of rock which was plastered over so it would hold water. The problem with this was you only had water when there was rain. Israel doesn’t get much rain and sometimes the rains fail. Even if you had rain, the rainwater in the cistern would often get dirty. Also, as we heard in our reading from Jeremiah cisterns could become cracked and then they won’t hold water.
A better kind of water is running water, especially spring water. This water stays fresh and clean. It doesn’t run out like a cistern. This constant source of fresh water was called “living water,” probably because of its life-giving qualities as well as it’s freshness. The prophet Jeremiah compared God, the living water to the cracked cisterns that we have without God. He said the people had forsaken the fountain of living water, the LORD and had instead turned to broken cisterns that cannot hold water.
Jesus talked about living water. Remember when He met the Samaritan woman at the well? He asked her for a drink of water. She was surprised because Samaritans and Jews normally don’t speak to each other. “Jesus answered her, “If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that is saying to you, ‘Give me a drink,’ you would have asked him, and he would have given you living water.” The woman said to him, “Sir, you have no bucket, and the well is deep. Where do you get that living water?” Jesus said to her, “Everyone who drinks of this water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
Jesus makes this claim one other time in John 7:37-38. 37 On the last day of the festival, the great day, while Jesus was standing there, he cried out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, 38 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.'”
Water is necessary for life. Perhaps that is why God and Jesus both are referred to in scripture as “living water.” They are necessary for life. Without God in our lives, without a relationship with Jesus we are drinking from cracked cisterns that only leave us thirsty again. Jesus alone gives us the living water that satisfies our spiritual thirst for God and relationship with God.
In our country we don’t worry about not having enough water. It runs clean and clear out of our faucets, as much as we want whenever we want. We don’t worry about thirst. We may not thirst for actual water but we often find ourselves in a state of spiritual thirst. A thirst that cannot be quenched by all the water in the world. The only thing that quenches this thirst is the living water that comes to us from Jesus Christ.
We all know the feeling of being thirsty. It’s not just about needing water; thirst can also represent our deep needs for love, support, and spiritual connection. The Bible often uses thirst as a powerful symbol of longing in our lives. Just as our bodies crave water, our souls crave a relationship with God. Throughout Scripture, we find encouragement and hope related to this thirst.
In Isaiah 41:17-18 God says, “17 “The poor and needy search for water, but there is none; their tongues are parched with thirst. But I the LORD will answer them; I, the God of Israel, will not forsake them. 18 I will make rivers flow on barren heights, and springs within the valleys. I will turn the desert into pools of water, and the parched ground into springs.”
This is what Jesus can do for us. He alone can quench our thirst. He can make rivers flow in our hearts with his living water. He can turn the parched ground of our souls into springs of water gushing up to eternal life
On the cross, Jesus’ suffering will soon be over. His body is failing, He has lost too much fluid, death is quite near. Jesus, the one who called Himself living water and invited us to drink, thirsts in our place. Suffers in our place. And will soon die in our place.
Jesus suffered thirst on the cross so we would be able to drink of His living water. Without the cross there would be no salvation. Jesus accomplished on the cross what we were incapable of accomplishing ourselves. He reconciled us back to God.
You see, the things of this world do not satisfy. Ask anyone if they are ever rich enough, young enough or attractive enough. We always find ourselves wanting more. More for me, more for me, more for me, me, me. Yet we are never satisfied. We are empty inside. There’s always a longing inside us for something more, something that will satisfy us, something that will complete us. That’s because our satisfaction was never supposed to come from things but from God. Only the living water that comes through Jesus will fill us, he has told us that when we drink of it we will never be thirsty. The water that Jesus gives us will become in us a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
In the beatitudes Jesus said, “blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” When we hunger and thirst for Jesus He will see to it that we are filled. Not with the things that don’t last but with His Word which is eternal.
This world only offers water that comes from cisterns, water that doesn’t satisfy. Jesus alone offers the living water that quenches our spiritual thirst.
What do we want, water from a cracked cistern that can never satisfy or the living water that comes from Jesus Christ? Let us cry out to God of our thirst. Let us ask Him to pour down living waters upon us. May He drench us in the Holy Spirit and fill us so that we will never thirst again.
Let us pray. O Lord, once again I thank you for what you suffered on the cross. Besides extraordinary pain, you also experienced extreme thirst. All of this happened because you took on our humanity so that you might take away our sin. Dear Lord, in your words “hirsty” I hear the cry of my own heart. I too am thirsty, Lord, not for physical drink. I don’t need sour wine. Rather, I need the new wine of your kingdom to flood my soul. I need to be refreshed by your living water. I yearn for your Spirit to fill me once again. I am thirsty, Lord, for you. Amen.