The Word of Identification

Let's talk about water today. Your body is about 60% water. That's a lot. I look this up that means that if you're about 170 pounds like me you are carrying 13 gallons of water in your body. You are going around with 13. Most of your weight is water. That's why you cannot live without water. When you're dehydrated you get muscle cramps, headaches, fever, kidney failure, fatigue. Thirst is agony and perhaps some of you are thirsty right now. That is so delicious. Thirst is not just craving a tall, cool, clear, delicious glass of water. Did you know your brain actually cannot function without water? And so what I want to do right now is everybody go out and get a drink right now and come back because I want you to hear this message.

No, I bring all this up because we're in a series called crosswords. Grab the message notes that look like this from your bulletins. We are looking at the final seven sayings of Christ from the cross and this morning we're looking at what's called the word of identification. See there's lots of words that Jesus said from the cross that only Jesus could say. There's lots of words that Jesus said that really only God could say but everybody in the world could relate to the word that we're looking at this morning. Everybody in the world has said the word we're looking at this morning when Jesus said, "I am thirsty." It's in John 19 and the scene John describes is painted here in one of the oldest illuminated manuscripts of the Gospels that yet exists. It's from Syria and here's what this is showing. Jesus had been hanging on the cross for six hours and this is following all night long six trials the brutal beating by the soldiers and John says later knowing that everything had now been finished and so that scripture would be fulfilled Jesus said, "I am thirsty."

Now in the original Greek language of the New Testament that sentence, "I am thirsty" is actually just one word in the Greek. To me this makes it even more touching because really Jesus was hanging on the cross and all he could kind of croak out of his parched throat was one word. The closest English equivalent would be thirsty. I mean isn't that profound that this wordsmith could all it could get out was just thirsty but in that one word there's so much rich meaning as you'll see in just a minute. What happens next? A jar of wine vinegar was there so they soaked a sponge in it and put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant and lifted it to Jesus's lips.

Now you know what's interesting is Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John all four Gospels all talk about Jesus getting a drink on the cross. They all mention this but only John includes all of these descriptive details. Now with John as an author every detail is important. In fact he says that at the end of his Gospel he says, "I very carefully selected." He says, "I could have filled all the world with books about Jesus." But he says, "I carefully selected these details to teach you things about Christ." And so I got to ask myself if all the other Gospel writers just kind of mentioned this drink but John includes certain details they leave out why does he include those things? And so let's investigate this morning because I think you'll see that he includes these details to teach you and me three things about Jesus that people often miss.

And frankly I think John's kind of looking at maybe the existing material on Jesus at his old age. He was the last one to write the Gospels and he's thinking, "I'm not sure people are really getting these three things about this man that I knew and loved and know and love." And so he includes these details to kind of give us a fully orb picture of Christ. There's three things. Jot these down in your notes. First he shows Jesus's resource and I mean his source of strength. The resources he drew on. Follow me here. We tend really we tend to unappreciate or underappreciate the strength that Jesus Christ had to have. Because just think about this. Nobody understood this guy. He was misunderstood by his own disciples. He was rejected by his own religious authorities. He was brutalized and mocked and beaten by the soldiers here at his trial. How in the world did he get through all of this? Always alone, always misunderstood.

We have a tendency to undermine just the human strength that it would take to get through something like this. You know most of us go, "Oh well he went through this because he was the divine being of course. He was God. That's how he did all this." But that is totally missing the point. It's really missing something really important. Jesus Christ was truly 100% human. More on that point in just a second. But Philippians 2 says he emptied himself when he became human. That doesn't mean he let go of his divine nature. But that means he let go of as theologians put it his divine prerogatives. That means when he was on earth as a human being, the resources that Jesus Christ had to tap into were no different than the resources you have to tap into. This is really important and people miss this.

People think Jesus walked around with some kind of secret knowledge about how to tap into the divine. Like Jesus walked around with some superpowers. Like Superman only. He was God-man. But that totally is not biblical. He had when he was on earth all he had was the same resources that you have available to you. And he said as much. That's why I said you can do the same things I do. Greater things than these you shall do. So how did he how did he tap into God's strength as a human being? The same two ways you can through prayer and watch this. This is why John says so that scripture would be fulfilled. Jesus is self-consciously fulfilling scripture by this. Psalm 22 again. Do you understand how often this comes up in Jesus's life especially in the Gospel of John? Jesus is aware of scripture, conscious of scripture, referring to scripture constantly.

I mean just think of his life. Jesus amazes the teacher in the temple when he's just 12 years old with his knowledge of the Bible. And then later on when the devil assaults him at the beginning of his ministry every response is right from scripture. Every time it is written it is written it is written. When the Pharisees debate him he says well you're an error because you don't know the scriptures or the power of God. When Peter takes out his sword at Jesus Christ's arrest and you know chops up somebody's ear and Jesus says put that away he says of course I could call on the angels of heaven to protect me but he says to Peter remember what he says? He says but then how would scripture be fulfilled? On the way to the cross he's carrying the cross to Golgotha and there's these women weeping and to comfort them he turns to them and says daughters of Jerusalem why do you weep? And then he quotes scripture he quotes Hosea to them.

And we saw last week on the cross, on the cross, while he's in the greatest agony of his life he quotes Psalm 22 verse 1 "My God, my God why have you forsaken me to show his disciples how this is all being fulfilled in scripture?" And this verse John is telling us constantly even now at the end of his life Jesus is thinking about the scripture and so his resource, his source of strength he was soaked in scripture soaked in it and because he was soaked in scripture what happens? Tim Keller puts it this way he says when you're stressed, when you're in the extreme place, when you're really under pressure what comes out is the real you. You know all of us have sort of two, two us's that we want to show people.

There's the real you that's down here deep inside your gut and then there's the you that you want other people to see, kind of the cool you right? The you that's kind of under control. It's like let's say somebody criticizes you harshly right? And the real you wants to strangle them but the you you want other people to see looks around and sees other people are nearby and so you go that's a very interesting point right? And so there's kind of the superficial you and the visceral you but when you're under extreme stress the superficial you goes away and you respond out of just the visceral you right? And so now here's Jesus in this extreme place. How is it possible that he's responding with such nobility and with such serenity and with such control? Oh well he was the Son of God that's missing the point.

He had the same resources that you have and that I have and the same frailties that any human being has except for sin but the same physical weaknesses. So how did he handle it? Here's the point when you stab Jesus he like literally bled scripture. When he was in the extreme point he didn't have to sit there and go okay now how am I supposed to act now? His nobility, his courage, his faith, all of that his peace all of that happened because he was just saturated with scripture. Now here's why I want to point this out. All the time I have people tell me I love Jesus but I really don't like the Bible. I love Jesus but the Bible's just weird. Jesus is cool but there's a lot of things about the Bible that offend me like that and there's a lot of things about the Bible that confuse me like this and so I'm not into the Bible but I've just kind of into Jesus and it becomes kind of the Jesus of their imagination.

Why does that not work for me? Because if you say Jesus is Lord, if you say Jesus is amazing, if you say Jesus is my Savior died for my sins on the cross and rose again then one of the things that follows is Jesus loved scripture. Jesus loved the Bible. Jesus was soaked in scripture and if you love Jesus you you're gonna want to be soaked in scripture too. You say I don't know there's parts I don't understand. How about starting in the parts that Jesus apparently loved because he quotes them all the time the Psalms and the book of Isaiah. Jesus is constantly referring to those two books of the Bible. Why don't you just start there and and they were like the soundtrack to his life and they can be the soundtrack to your life too.

If Jesus needed scripture to face the extreme times in his life how much more do you and I need scripture? If Jesus needed scripture when he was being tempted how much more do you and I if Jesus needs scripture when he was being needled by people who were mocking him how much more would that help you and me? So this is huge. John's saying tap into the resource of Jesus Christ and this is important because in John's day there were some Christian cults already starting up and he's trying to get the early Christians rooted in the Bible and you and I need this too. And the next John is showing Jesus Christ's reality. Jesus' reality which is that he was fully human. A hundred percent human. Jesus was not 50% God and 50% human. He was a hundred percent human and a hundred percent divine.

Chapter one of the Gospel of John John starts with the Word it was God but then he goes right to and the Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. Flesh really physical real and that's why here John I think it's very important for John to say not just Jesus got a drink like Matthew Mark and Luke say but John's like I gotta tell you a detail before he got the drink Jesus said thirsty thirsty. See I'm just curious how many people in this room have ever been with somebody who was dying somebody in the last week of their lives let's say maybe a friend or maybe it's because of your profession you're a nurse or doctor or a relative how many of you have been at somebody's bedside say in the last week of their lives can I see a show of hands it's most of us here it's most of us so you know that if that person is conscious one of the things they are going to say inevitably like universally is I'm thirsty right and you give them little ice chips or you put a little straw in their mouths that's what they're gonna say and John saying Jesus when he was dying got thirsty just like you'll get thirsty and then Jesus died just like you're going to die very important for John to establish this.

Why in John's day one of those cults that was arising was a cult that taught that Jesus was not ever really physical they said the physical world is sinful it's evil so how could God become physical so Jesus was just like a ghost but John's saying no I was there and ghosts don't say I'm thirsty ghosts don't cry out in pain ghosts don't bleed when you stick them Jesus Christ was really really human and really suffered in fact it's interesting this is not the first drink that Jesus was offered do you remember hours before this when he was first put on the cross the Bible says in Mark 15:23 the soldiers tried to give Jesus wine mixed with murder drink but he refused this is six hours earlier why did he refuse that drink well one of the things that mer does for you especially when mixed with alcohol is it's an analgesic it's a pain reliever it's still used that way to this day and so Jesus has lots of uses but that's one of them and Jesus did not want to be anesthetized when he was going through the suffering he wanted to experience the full depth of the suffering on the cross because he wanted to physically feel all of this.

Why is this important to you maybe you are dealing with physical pain this is so reassuring because you can know Jesus understands physical pain he really gets it or maybe you're emotionally in pain you're beaten down Jesus knows emotional pain he was not anesthetized he was not a ghost he was abused he was rejected he was mocked and bullied have you ever been mistreated or misunderstood or devalued Jesus - he knows what you're going through you're on not alone you have a Savior who gets it because he was truly one of us and this little word thirsty is for John such an important detail because it's such a succinct expression of this we have a God who became thirsty for us.

Okay why that brings us to our third point on page 2 Jesus's reason for going through all of this now again remember in the Gospel of John every little detail matters so the other guys talk about the drink Jesus gets but only John says you know what he said he said thirsty you know what you'll find when if you read the whole book of John that's a theme in the book of John several times in the book of John Jesus talks about thirst and Jesus talks about water but every other time he's talking to people who are thirsty saying I can fill your thirst for example in John 4 Jesus is talking to the Samaritan woman at the well and he says this to her whoever drinks this water will thirst again but whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

Now what in the world is Jesus talking about he's saying if you try to satisfy soul thirst with anything of this earth anything money pleasure possessions fame and fortune sex anything and none of those things is wrong in the in the right context right but Jesus is saying if it's an idol for you it is unsatisfying because you'll always need more you'll get thirsty again you'll go I need more recognition I need a little more success I need a little bit more money I need a little bit more fame I need a little bit more love because you're making it an idol and it's never gonna satisfy you'll just be thirsty again you know I'm a Beatles fan and last night I saw this quote from George Harrison you know the Beatles had all kinds of fame and fortune but he said I remember thinking I just want more so this can't be it fame can't be it money can't be it to be able to know peace of mind that's worth the search.

Well he was observing what Jesus was talking about here anything else you'll just always want more you'll just get thirsty again but Jesus offers you something peace of mind total peace total acceptance from God that'll satisfy your soul well back in John 4 the woman at the well goes really give me that water I'd love to not thirst again and then Jesus goes get your husband and we'll talk about it and you're reading this and it's interesting her response she goes yeah yeah well I don't have a husband and Jesus goes you know you're right when you say you don't have a husband because the fact is you've had five husbands and you've been divorced five times and the man that you're living with right now you're not married to and you read this and you kind of go wow Jesus why did you say that you know she's asking for spiritual truth you got her right there and you are bringing up her mess up love life why are you changing the subject Jesus and of course the answer is he's not changing the subject he's bringing that up exactly because she was trying to find the answer to her thirst through men romance acceptance love and it was apparently never gonna be enough she was gonna go from one lover to the next and he says I've got spiritual water that's going to satisfy that thirst.

And again it's a theme in John Jesus brings it up again in John 7 where it says fascinating passage on the last and greatest day of the festival Jesus stood up and said in a loud voice let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink whoever believes in me as scripture has said you see that again scripture has said rivers of living water will flow from within them. Now to get this this is just genius I always find myself saying Jesus was a genius yeah I guess he was a genius but I mean he really was it was just brilliant what he's doing here because it says on the last and greatest day of the festival what festival this was what was called the feast of booths BOO THS the feast of booths or tents or tabernacles I was met want to make that clear because when I was a little kid in church I thought my pastor kept saying the feast of booze like the feast of booze that's in the Bible really like Mardi Gras no booths okay booths.

So what happened was the the Israelites would remember how they used to have to travel in tents everywhere and they would set up tents and live in tents for a week and as part of this feast what and to celebrate the fact that they now had a temple the priests would go to a well called the well of Siloam which was spring-fed down just outside the gates of the city and they would bring it up in this big parade every day for seven days up to the temple Mount the top of this little hill and then they in silver jugs they would pour out the water from the temple and the temple had these drains that were built in to carry the blood from the sacrifices but in this feast it wasn't blood it was water and it would stream off the temple Mount in this big celebration and the seventh day of the feast they brought up seven times the water and so there was just all this water just streaming off the temple Mount.

Why? Because in those days it was believed that the temple was the center of creation and that when God was going to come to recreate the world to start the kingdom of God on earth that it was going to start at the temple and rivers of life will flow out of the temple Mount and every place on earth that these rivers of living water touch the earth will turn back into Eden again it'll all become green and lush and as the water flows from the temple to the whole earth all sin and sadness will evaporate and God's kingdom will come to earth because the rivers of life will flow from the temple Mount and so this annual festival was sort of an anticipation of that and on the last day of the festival Jesus stands up and says this he says hey you know what the temple actually isn't the source of living water I am and the temple isn't where rivers of life are gonna flow out to change the world you are because rivers of life will flow from you abundantly to everybody you come into contact with when you have me the Lord inside of you the kingdom of God is gonna start from you and spread this way and then here on the cross he's fulfilling the purpose of the temple and making it possible for rivers of life to be inside of us.

How's he doing this again details John describes an interesting detail on this scene he says they put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant now it was a another annual Jewish feast when Jesus was crucified what feast the Passover it was the seder what was the Passover well the Passover was when the people of Israel remembered how God delivered them from slavery in Egypt and God warns them he says the angel of death will come tonight but I want you to take a lamb without blemish and sacrifice that lamb and before your dinner together I want you to take some of that lamb's blood and go to the doors of your houses and dab the sides and the top of the doors with blood so that when death comes it will pass over you and the doorway of your house which used to lead to slavery in Egypt is going to lead to your freedom and that's where we get the word Passover from.

Now watch this this next verse is from 1400 years before the crucifixion where God is telling the people of Israel how to do this take a branch of the what plant hyssop plant dip it in the bowl filled with blood and then wipe the blood on the sides and tops of the door frames the branch of what plant again hyssop so when John sees them taking a hyssop plant and holding it up to Jesus who's bleeding there for the sins of the world John goes oh my goodness there's another sign the dots just keep connecting this is the true Passover lamb of God dying for the sins not of a family but for the human family this is the ultimate lamb without blemish and he bled from his head and his side and his hands like in Passover the blood on the top and the sides making the shape of a cross and he now became the door the way out of slavery and into freedom and John's just tripping out here you could say that Jesus was thirsty to quench my thirst he was thirsting so that we can have the living water he's going through deep thirst so that you and I never have to be thirsty again so this is why John's going oh man there's some more details you need to know about that drink that are just that I've been thinking about for years and they are just amazing.

So what's my response to all this well two things I ask myself first will I offer water to him will I offer water to Jesus what am I talking about think about it somebody in the crowd heard him thirsty and somebody got a branch and put a sponge on it and held it up to Jesus someone had the privilege of assisting Jesus Christ when he was thirsty wouldn't that have been awesome to be the person who was on it and did that for Jesus while he was dying you might say that's that'd be awesome but that's over it's not over because in a way he's still asking and you still have the privilege of helping say what are you talking about Jesus said one day people are gonna come to me and they're gonna say Lord when did we see you hungry and feed you or thirsty and give you something to drink truly I tell you whatever you did for one of these the least of my brothers and sisters you did what for me.

You know a lot of people don't know that the verse we're looking at today John 19:28 where Jesus says I thirst that was the life verse of mother Teresa mother Teresa who started there in Calcutta India taking in people who were literally dying and she'd taken little kids or or old people whoever needed it and she started these system of homes the sisters of charity and they would help people out who needed their help but in every one of the homes of the sisters of charity and every one of them there was something that was the same wherever they were all over the world there was an image of Jesus on the cross and beside the words I thirst because mother Teresa said we are quenching the thirst of Christ by helping others who are thirsty Matthew 10:42 if you give even a cup of cold water to one of the least of these my followers you will surely be rewarded even just giving a cup of cold water to somebody who's thirsty Jesus says man that's so important to me.

This is huge because God is saying a lot of times you know we we're not really doing anything for God because we're saying I want to do a great thing for God I'm waiting for the great opportunity and God is saying don't just wait for the great opportunity go for the small opportunity because the small things are all around you every day and he who's faithful with little will be given much.

I have to read you a story that I read this week in a message by Rick Warren that blew my mind now a missionary named Doug Nichols wrote this he was living in India at the time and he had tuberculosis listen to this he says when I got tuberculosis in India I was forced to stay in a sanitarium for several months I didn't speak the language but I tried to give Christian literature in their language to the patients to the doctors the nurses but everybody politely refused he says the first few nights I woke up around 2 a.m. coughing and during my coughing spells he says I noticed an older man also sick with TB across the room now he says that this older man sat up on the edge of his bed and rock back and forth and tried to get up but but he couldn't get up and finally after what much kind of whimpering he kind of laid back down in his bed and Doug says I noticed this happening but I didn't know what he was trying to do.

He said well apparently he was trying to get up and go to the bathroom and he didn't have the strength because he said the next morning the stench in the ward was unspeakable and he said patients other patients yelled at him he said one of the nurses even slapped him and he said people treated him rudely and he said the old man just curled up in a ball on his bed and just cried because he was so humiliated so he says the next night I woke up again at about two or three in the morning coughing from his TB and he says I looked over there and this old man's again trying to get up on his bed like this and he says I got up because I wasn't as sick as him and he says I went over there and touched him on the shoulder and he says the old man looked up at me with fear at first but he says then I just kind of motioned and he understood what I was offering and he said I helped him get up and he said I took him over to the toilet which there in India is usually kind of a hole in the ground and he said so I stood behind him and held him under his arms while he took care of business and he said then afterwards I helped him and I took him back to bed and put him down and he said when I put him down the old man put up his hand and kind of struck my cheek he gave me a kiss on my cheek and he said he said something in Hindi that I didn't understand and he went back to sleep and he says so I went back to sleep too.

He says the next morning I was awakened by another patient who handed me a steaming cup of tea and he motioned with his hands that he wanted one of my gospel booklets and as the sun rose other patients approached it indicated they also wanted the booklets that nobody else had been interested in before he says throughout the day nurses and interns and doctors all said they wanted the booklets too he said later that year a missionary who spoke Hindi visited me and told me that several in the hospital had put their trust in Christ as a result of reading those gospel booklets.

Now I want you to listen to how he concludes his story he says so what did it take to reach these dear people with the good news not my ability to speak their language or even give a persuasive presentation I helped a man to the bathroom you know you don't have to be famous you don't have to be a preacher you don't have to have the whole Bible memorized you just have to be willing to help somebody to the bathroom if they need it just willing to give a cup of cold water if they're thirsty.

Now I listed some of the ways through TLC that you can help in practical ways there on page three of your bulletin some of them are mission trips you know our college group right now as I speak they're at an orphanage in Mexico the Palau's orphanage and they're doing construction projects in the morning in the afternoon they're helping the kids with their homework and playing with the kids they're gonna take him to a water park they're doing that for Jesus because really they're responding to Jesus saying I thirst.

So the question is will I offer water to him and finally the question will I receive water from him will I receive water from him because the offer still stands Jesus really paraphrasing God and Isaiah when he talks to the Samaritan woman and the people at the festival come all you who are thirsty come to the waters and you who have no money come buy any come buy wine and milk without money without cost it's all by grace you know Jesus is still offering himself to you what a beautiful way to put what it means to accept Christ he's saying are you thirsty are you thirsty spiritually then have a drink you know there's spiritually thirsty people all around you your neighbors your co-workers relatives now they probably won't say I'm spiritually thirsty this is how I diagnosed my problem but they'll probably say say things like I'm bored I'm unfulfilled I'm unhappy I don't have peace that's spiritual thirst and you can help them by offering them a drink of water one very low-pressure way to do it is invite them to Easter coming up in just a few weeks but if you're spiritually thirsty the only way to really quench that thirst for the long haul is to come to the one who thirsted for you and he's still thirsting to know you.

So let's have a drink would you pray with me together let's bow our heads with our heads about I just want to invite you to follow me in a prayer right now something like this just say dear Jesus I realize that I often look to other things to find fulfillment and satisfaction but I realized again today that what I'm really thirsty for is you a relationship with God peace of mind and so I come to you Jesus I want that drink of living water so it overflows out of me and pours into the lives of others even if it just means giving a cup of cold water to somebody and Lord thank you that you understand my pain thank you that you were a hundred percent divine and a hundred percent human so you came to experience what we all experience and so I open my life totally to you and I ask you to fill me with your love and help me to come to you every day to get filled and refilled and I pray this in Jesus name amen.