Last week (in the post "Seven Words from the Cross") we sought to gain an insider’s view of what was happening through the eyes of Jesus himself during the Passion. He spoke seven short but significant sentences from the cross, which together throw light on the cross. No one evangelist records them all. Matthew and Mark preserve only one (the cry of neglect), while of the remaining six, Luke records three and John three. The church has cherished these so-called seven words from the cross as disclosing the otherwise unknown thoughts of Jesus. Today, we will look at the final three statements from the Cross. Each of them hold the power to change our lives!
1. His Agony of Thirst
“Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’” – John 19:28
At the time of his crucifixion Jesus was offered wine to drink mixed with gall, but after tasting it, he refused to drink it (Matthew 27:34), perhaps because he was determined to be in full possession of his senses while suffering for us on the cross. Hours later, however, on emerging from the godforsaken darkness, and knowing that the end was near, Jesus said, “I am thirsty.” In response the bystanders soaked a sponge in wine vinegar (the Roman soldiers’ common drink) and lifted it on a stalk of hyssop to Jesus’s lips.
This is the only word from the cross that expressed Jesus’s physical pain. He spoke it, the evangelist added it, that the Scripture might be fulfilled. Indeed, it had been prophesied twice in the Psalms. In Psalm 22:15 it is written, “My strength is dried up like a potsherd, and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth,” while in Psalm 69:21 we read, “They put gall in my food and gave me vinegar for my thirst.”
It would be a mistake to suppose, however, that a literal physical thirst exhausts the significance of Jesus’s fifth cry from the cross. His thirst, like the darkness, was also surely figurative. If the darkness of the sky symbolized the darkness in which our sins enveloped Jesus, and if the death of his body was to symbolize his spiritual death, then his thirst symbolized the torment of separation from God. Darkness, death, and thirst. What are these but what the Bible calls hell – outer darkness, the second death, and the lake of fire – all expressing the horror of exclusion from God? This is what our Savior suffered for us on the cross.
Thirst is an especially poignant symbol, because Jesus had earlier said, “If anyone is thirsty, let him come to me and drink” (John 7:37). But he who satisfies our thirst himself now experiences on the cross a ghastly thirst. He longs, like the rich man in the parable, that Lazarus will dip the tip of his finger in water and cool his tongue. Thus Jesus thirsted on the cross that we might never thirst again.
“Never again will they hunger; never again will they thirst. The sun will not beat upon them, nor any scorching heat.” – Revelation 7:16
2. His Shout of Triumph
“When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’” – John 19:30
In the first three words from the cross we saw Jesus as our example, and the fourth and fifth as our sin bearer. Now in the last two cries he appears as the conqueror, for they express the victory that he has won for us.
One could perhaps claim that the words of the sixth cry (“It is finished”) are the most momentous ever spoken. Already in anticipation Jesus had claimed that he had completed the work he had come into the world to do (17:4). So next he makes a public declaration of it. His cry is not the despairing groan of one who is dying in resignation and defeat. It is a shout, according to Matthew and Mark, uttered “in a loud voice” (Matthew 27:50), proclaiming a resounding victory.
The Greek verb (tetelestai) is in the perfect tense, indicating an achievement with lasting results. It might be rendered, “It has been and remains forever accomplished.” For Christ has made what the Letter to the Hebrews calls “one single sacrifice for sins” (Hebrews 10:12) and what Cranmer in the Book of Common Prayer called “a full, perfect and sufficient sacrifice, oblation and satisfaction for the sins of the world.” In consequence, because Christ has finished the work of sin bearing, there is nothing left for us to do, or even to contribute.
And to demonstrate the satisfactory nature of what Christ has done, the veil of the temple was torn down “from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51) in order to show that the hand of God had done it. This curtain had hung for centuries between the outer and the inner sanctuaries as an emblem of the inaccessibility of God to sinners, for no one might penetrate beyond the veil into the presence of God except the high priest on the Day of Atonement. But now the veil was torn in half and discarded, for it was needed no longer. The worshipers in the temple courts, gathered that afternoon for the evening sacrifice, were dramatically informed of another and a better sacrifice by which they could draw near to God.
3. His Final Surrender
None of the evangelists says that Jesus “died.” They seem deliberant to avoid the word. They do not want to give the impression that in the end death claimed him and that he had to yield to its authority. Death did not claim him as its victim; he seized it as its victor.
Between them the evangelists use four different expressions, each of which places the initiative in the process of dying in Jesus’s own hands. Mark says he “breathed his last” (Mark 15:37), and Matthew that he “gave up his spirit” (Matthew 27:50), while Luke records his words, “Father, into your hands I commit my spirit” (Luke 23:46). But John’s expression is the most striking, namely that “he bowed his head and gave up his spirit” (John 19:30). The verb is again paradidomi, which was used of Barabbas, the priests, Pilate, and the soldiers who “handed over” Jesus. But now John uses it of Jesus himself, handing over his spirit to the Father and his body to death. Notice that before he did this he “bowed his head.” It is not that he first died, and then his head fell forward onto his chest. It is the other way around. The bowing of the head was his final act of surrender to the will of his Father. So by word and deed (bowing the head and declaring that he was handing over his spirit), Jesus indicated that his death was his own voluntary act.
Jesus could have escaped death right up to the last minute. As he said in the garden, he could have summoned more than twelve legions of angels to rescue him. He could have come down from the cross, as his mockers challenged him to do. But he did not. Of his own free will and deliberate choice he gave himself up to death. It was he who determined the time, the place, and the manner of his departure.
The last two words from the cross (“finished” and “I commit my spirit”) proclaim Jesus as the conqueror of sin and death. We must come humbly to the cross, deserving nothing but judgment, pleading nothing but mercy, and Christ will deliver us from both the guilt of sin and the fear of death. (from John Stott)
Blogging Away,
pcraig
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