While Christ Jesus was suffering on the cross he looked down at the Roman soldiers and said, “I thirst.” This is recorded in John 19. The Roman soldiers soaked a sponge in wine vinegar and put it to his lips. There are a few things we can take from these two short words. First, this is another time that Jesus is shown quoting scripture. Here, Jesus is alluding to Psalm 22. On the cross, Jesus does not leave us wondering who he is. He is the one that has come to fulfill the scriptures. Second, this reminds us of Jesus’ physical humanity. Jesus left behind his divine nature to take on human form. Thirst is a feeling we can identify with. Jesus was not just a divine being that did not feel pain. He physically suffered and died for us. Finally, this sets up the next thing Jesus says in John 19. He needed to drink to wet his lips and throat. After wetting his lips Jesus says, “It is finished.” This was the completion of the Old Testament prophecies. Although he still had things to take care of, the most important things were accomplished on the cross. Jesus’ perfect obedience to his father was completed. Most importantly, the power of sin, death, and the Devil was defeated.
As to the first of two things Jesus said, in our political world, we thirst for more news. We need to consume more information. We look to our media for our answers. We turn on CNN, MSNBC, and FOX to get our fix. We hate watch news that we do not like and get angry at clickbait from news outlets we do not agree with. We scroll through Twitter and Facebook looking for the best takes on current events. We are thirsting for information in this media drive world we live in, but in the end, we are just dehydrating ourselves.
The same way we are reminded by Jesus’ humanity on the cross, we should be reminded of our humanity. While we are focused on the insignificant events going on in the world, we should be focusing on our eternal lives. We know the things of this world do not matter, but we still focus all our time on those things. We will skip church because we would rather spend our mornings on our phones. We will skip bible study because we need to catch up on the news after work. We are thirsting for news while we should be thirsting for the word of God.
As to the second thing Jesus said, completing tasks is always the goal. In our government, elected officials want to solve problems. Elected officials want to solve climate change, fix the opioid pandemic, and bring down crime. They also want to complete tasks. They want to finish that road, build that school, and refurbish that park. In our personal lives, we want to complete what we must do. We want to get done with work so we can go home. We want to finish homework so we can do what we want to do. With this work, there will always be more to do the next day. Our work on earth is never complete, but we can have assurance that the work Jesus came to earth to do is finished.
When Jesus said, “It is finished,” he was not saying it was finished for just that day. He was not going to come back and do this again. His work was finished for all time. He paid our ransom in full. Our sins are forgiven. He defeated sin, death, and the Devil. We may have to worry about finishing the work we must do, but we can know that the most important work is finished.
As we are moving through Lent it is important to look to the cross for guidance. In just the few things Jesus says from the cross we can take so much from it. As we head into Holy Week, we need to turn our eyes to God and celebrate those events that happened 2000 years ago.
Politics with Kegan Prentice 