It
was toward the end of His time on the cross. Jesus had been hanging there for
some time. His hands and feet had been pierced by nails. His shoulders and arms
were knotted and twisted with the agonizing effort of supporting his hanging
weight. His body still ached with the beating he'd received and his back still
stung from the lashes of the whip.
As
he hung there, perhaps in his loneliness and utter despair he wondered if it
was truly worth it. Perhaps his thoughts or his imagination went to that conversation
he’d had with the Creator—perhaps a conversation while he was in prayer in the
garden—perhaps a conversation that pre-dated even his nativity—a conversation
on another plane of existence, the like of which you and I cannot begin to
imagine.
The
Creator had tried so many times to get through to us. Coming as the Spirit,
forming a people from a bunch of donkey-trading nomads. Leading them out of slavery and into a land
of their own. Inspiring holy men and women to record God’s mighty deeds through
poetry, history, myth, parable, drama. Giving us Laws to live by. Touching
prophets and singers to proclaim justice and call forth compassion among the
people, the family God was continually trying to form.
But
again and again we turned away. Again and again we danced around the golden
calf, mocked the messengers, worshipped idols we could see, and then worshipped
false gods we could not see—lust and greed, pride and selfishness, envy and
libel, wealth and earthly riches, prestige and status, apathy and hypocrisy and
empty ritual. Again and again we brutalized and discriminated and abused women
and children, ignored orphans. Again and again we trampled down the poor,
ostracized the stranger among us, belittled and bullied those who dared to look
or think or speak, or live differently.
Finally
the time was right. Nothing else had worked.
“I must go among them and tell them, heal
them, teach them, show them another way to live, show them the way to the holy,
show them how to treat one another, how you intended them to live, how to live
with compassion and love, how to be your family.”
But Jesus knew we would not want to
hear that. We would not be able to tolerate such words and acts. Jesus knew how
they have treated God’s commandments. He knew how we had treated the prophets.
Jesus
knew how we would react. We would call Him rebel, troublemaker, heretic,
disturber of the status quo. We would hate Him for holding up that mirror to
our souls. We would will fear and belittle and mock and torture and kill Him in
the most horrible ways we could. For that is who we are.
“I know that, Abba. But I must
go—for them.” Perhaps that was what he meant in the Garden as he prayed “If it be possible, let this cup pass by
me.” Perhaps.
Because in the end, Jesus must have
known it was not possible. The cup could not pass Him by. He had come among us,
and taught and lived and healed as he had intended. And all he had feared, all
that he knew would happen had happened.
Not
because he had willed it. Not because the Creator had demanded it. But because
it was inevitable someone saying what he’d come to say, and doing what he’d
come to do, would end up nailed on a cross. In the end, he was there, because
it was inevitable. In the end Jesus had chosen the cross..
"I Thirst." He croaked through
parched lips and a tongue twisted with dryness. John's Gospel tells us that
this was something Jesus said only to fulfill an obscure prophecy. And indeed,
if you read Psalm 22, you'll find this passage.
My
mouth is a dry as a broken potshard
And
my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth.
I
am laid low in the dust of death,
The
hunters are all about me.
"I Thirst", Jesus cried.
In
his Gospel, John was concerned that Jesus would not seem to be too human, too
vulnerable to his readers. Maybe he wasn't very comfortable dealing with the
humanity of Jesus. Certainly many of us don't really want to grapple with the
humanity of Jesus. We choose not to
realize that he had blood like ours, flesh like ours, that he got dirty and
tired and hungry and thirsty even cranky sometimes, just as we do. We don't want to reflect upon the fact that
he could sweat and cry and weep and feel utterly alone upon the cross.
If
Jesus was only a heavenly being--really God disguised as a human, only
pretending to be a real live person, if his suffering didn't hurt so much, if
his death wasn't real, then it all wouldn't all count quite as much. Then we
wouldn't be quite so indebted to him. Then we wouldn't have to feel quite so
guilty about it. Then we wouldn't have to feel quite so guilty about our own
sins and shortcomings.
But
Jesus won't let us off the hook that way. Our Lord was fully human. As human as you or I. He was flesh and blood
and the suffering that he endured on the cross hurt just as much as the torture
of any poor, luckless wretch in a dark cellar somewhere in South America or
Africa or Eastern Europe or even in the back room of a police station in this
country. And when they cut Jesus down
from the cross, his body was just as dead as anyone's who was ever snatched up
and disappeared and executed by a totalitarian government--right or left,
legally or illegally.
Jesus
had no way to turn off the pain, no more than do you or I can turn it off. When
he chose to be on that cross, Our Savior chose to accept and share the cup of
our suffering fully, as a complete human being. He suffered and he died. Just
as you and I suffer. Just as you and I will one day die.
"I thirst", he cried up there
on the cross. What a moving cry to come from one who claimed that "those who believe in me shall never thirst'.
What a moving cry to come from one who announced that he was "the water of life". What irony that the man who raised
Lazarus from the dead would die, unable to even raise spit in his own mouth.
"I thirst" he cried. And
someone from the crowd, maybe a soldier, maybe a disciple, soaked a sponge in
the cheap, vinegary wine the soldiers were issued and stuck the sponge on a
javelin and held it up to his mouth. Again we're reminded of the Psalms. "They
gave me vinegar when I was thirsty." (69:21).
And
in that act, perhaps we can see some hope for cruel human-unkind. In that act,
perhaps we can see the seed of the New Jerusalem, the Heavenly Realm that Jesus
was always talking about. There, after suffering agonizing torture, betrayed by
his friends, attended by only a handful, after having cried to God in his
despair, Jesus was offered some comfort.
Granted,
it was no more than a sponge soaked in sour wine. But was an act of human pity
for a poor suffering stranger. Whoever did it didn't have to exert themselves
for a condemned criminal one bit. But they did.
"I thirst" he cried. And in
his need, Jesus was given sour wine to drink.
"I thirst" he cried. And in
his utter loneliness, someone took pity on him.
"I thirst" he cried. And in
his despair, God answered his prayer.
Maybe,
Humanity is not totally irredeemable. Jesus had not come for nothing. The
sacrifice was not in vain. There was still a dim spark of hope in this
blood-soaked and terror-filled world. Some soldier gave Jesus a drink in his
moment of agony, and perhaps the world didn't look so bleak.
"I thirst" he cried on the
cross
--for moisture
--for human
compassion
--for
God
and
Jesus' cry was answered.
And
Jesus knew it had been worth it.
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