Jesus spoke these very words from the old rugged Cross two thousand years ago. In John 19:28, King James Version … “I THIRST!”
He had been hanging there for six hours, dehydrating every minute no doubt. He WAS thirsty!
Jesus was also fulfilling Bible Prophecy!
Two Psalms specifically come to mind …
“My strength is dried up like a potsherd; and my tongue cleaveth to my jaws; and thou hast brought me into the dust of death.” Psalm 22:15, the Psalm of the Crucifixion!
Also Psalm 69:21 … “They gave me also gall for my meat; and in my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.” Also Messianic!
This kind of Thirst can be torturous, if acute. Deadly, if unsatisfied. And Jesus was dying as He uttered that thirsty Cry!
The story is told (I first read it in a little devotional booklet named “Baptist Bread”) of a dying confederate soldier on a Civil War battlefield. He lay between the two opposing armies, the North and the South, right in the middle of that brutal conflict!
As he was expiring he kept crying out in obvious agony, Water! Water! Water!” Please someone … “Water, Water, Water!”
A brave union officer said to his troops (with the battle raging) “I am talking that dying man some water!”
His comrades said, “You will be killed if you leave this trench. Shot upon sight! There’s a war going on around you!”
But up he jumped, canteen in hand, heading for the dying boy. As soon as he was seen … I suspect holding that canteen high and clearly visible … all shooting ceased!
The conflict quieted long enough for the captain to reach the thirst soldier and give him all he could drink. He slaked that gnawing thirst! Then turned, and went back to his men! (Thirsty no more!)
That’s right, miraculously (or mercifully), not a shot was fired until he reached safety!
The power of THIRST!
Wow!
Now back to JESUS! Who is of course a much greater hero! Who is our Saviour!
He thirsted too, dying. But He was raised from the grave … and offers to us that very thing He so needed on the Cross … WATER!
The water of Life!
An inexhaustibvle supply!
“Let him that is athirst come. And whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely.” Revelation 22:17
Also … “He that believeth on me, as the scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.” John 7:38, Jesus talking!
Again, Jesus to a woman at a well … “Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life.” John 4:14
The once THIRSTY Jesus is now the Supplier of water to all who come! And I do mean “all.”
Hallelujah!
— Dr. Mike Bagwell
.