Please turn with me in the Word of God to John chapter 19, and we will read there the first 37 verses together, John chapter 19, beginning at verse 1. Again, let us give our attention to the very Word of God. Then Pilate took Jesus and flogged him, and the soldiers twisted together a crown of thorns and put it on his head and arrayed him in a purple robe. They came up to him, saying, Hail, King of the Jews, and struck him with their hands. Pilate went out again and said to them, See, I'm bringing him out to you, that you may know I find no guilt in him. So Jesus came out, wearing the crown of thorns and the purple robe. Pilate said to them, Behold the man. When the chief priests and the officers saw him, they cried out, Crucify him, crucify him. Pilate said to them, Take him yourselves and crucify him, for I find no guilt in him. The Jews answered him, We have a law, and according to that law he ought to die, because he has made himself the son of God. When Pilate heard this statement, he was even more afraid. He entered his headquarters again and said to Jesus, Where are you from? But Jesus gave him no answer. So Pilate said to him, Will you not speak to me? Do you not know that I have authority to release you and authority to crucify you? Jesus answered him, You would have no authority over me at all unless it had been given you from above. Therefore, he who delivers me over to you has the greater sin. From then on, Pilate sought to release him. But the Jews cried out, if you release this man, you are not Caesar's friend. Everyone who makes himself a king opposes Caesar. So when Pilate heard these words, he brought Jesus out and sat down on the judgment seat at a place called the stone pavement. And in Aramaic Gabbatha, now it was the day of the preparation of the Passover. It was about the sixth hour. He said to the Jews, Behold your king. And they cried out, Away with him, away with him, crucify him. Jesus said to them, Pilate said to them, Shall I crucify your king? The chief priests answered, We have no king but Caesar. so he delivered him over to them to be crucified. So they took Jesus, and he went out bearing his own cross to the place of the skull, which in Aramaic is called Golgotha. There they crucified him and with him two others, one on either side, and Jesus between them. Pilate also wrote an inscription and put it on the cross. It read, Jesus of Nazareth, the king of the Jews. Many of the Jews read this inscription, for the place where Jesus was crucified was near the city, and it was written in Aramaic, in Latin, and in Greek. So the chief priests of the Jews said to Pilate, Do not write the king of the Jews, but rather, this man said, I am the king of the Jews. Pilate answered, What I have written, I have written. When the soldiers had crucified Jesus, they took his garments and divided them into four parts, one part for each soldier, also his tunic. But the tunic was seamless, woven in one piece from top to bottom. So they said to one another, Let us not tear it, but cast lots for it to see whose it shall be. This was to fulfill the scripture which says, They divided my garments among them, and for my clothing they cast lots. So the soldiers did these things. But standing by the cross of Jesus were his mother and his mother's sister Mary, the wife of Clopas and Mary Magdalene. When Jesus saw his mother and the disciple whom he loved standing nearby, he said to his mother, Woman, behold your son. Then he said to this disciple, Behold your mother. And from that hour the disciple took her to his own home. After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished. And he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. since it was the day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day. The Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they might be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear, and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth that you also may believe. For these things took place that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. And again, another scripture says, they will look on him whom they have pierced. So far, the reading of God's word. We often remember on Good Friday what we call the seven words from the cross. The Gospel writers record seven different statements that Jesus made while hanging on the cross. Some churches have services on Friday afternoon where one after another, the seven words from the cross are preached on. And that's a very useful exercise. It's good to remember those words, but it's also important to remember that the Gospel writers have rather carefully chosen to record different words in different Gospels. Matthew and Mark record just the one word, My God, my God, why have you forsaken me? And neither Luke nor John records that word. Luke records three distinct words that are unique to him. Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do. Truly I say to you, today you will be with me in paradise. And Father, into your hands I commend my spirit. And likewise, John records three unique words. Woman, behold your son. And to John, behold your mother. And then I thirst, and finally it is finished. Each of the gospel writers recorded the words that he did to tie into his peculiar and distinctive presentation of the death of Jesus. And I would like to focus tonight on this distinctive word that John records, where Jesus cries from the cross, I thirst. I thirst. At first glance, that seems to be simply a very human expression of the Savior. Having undergone the torture, having undergone the burden of carrying the cross, having undergone the trauma of being nailed to the cross, And then, having hung for a time on the cross, it is not surprising that he would be thirsty. And so we may rather quickly conclude that this is simply an expression of the humanity of our Savior, of his very real physical needs in life. And, of course, that's true as far as it goes. But I think John records this statement to say much more to us than just that. For John, in a sense, this is almost the culminating moment of the humiliation and suffering of our Savior. Think of what he has undergone to this point. The one who is always loyal to his own has been betrayed. The one who has come to liberate sinners has been arrested. The one who chose Peter has been denied by him. The one who is the righteous judge has been tried before a kangaroo court. The one who had persevered with Israel has been rejected by his people. The one who loved the world has been despised by the world. The completely innocent one has been unjustly condemned. The one worthy of all praise has been mocked. The mighty God has been crucified in weakness. The sinner's truest friend has been deprived of family and friends. The creator of all has been stripped bare. The one who has the water of life is dying of thirst. This is the picture that John has painted for us of the suffering of the Savior. And he presents this thirst of Jesus as the culmination of this suffering to remind us that the thirst that Jesus is undergoing is not only physical, but also spiritual. This is the thirst of judgment that he is facing. This is the thirst of abandonment that he is undergoing. This is John's equivalent of the cry, My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me? In the prophetic words of Psalm 22, verse 15, we hear Jesus saying, My strength is dried up like a potsherd and my tongue sticks to my jaws. You lay me in the dust of death. This thirst is death. This thirst is judgment. And it is ironic that at the same time the image of thirst is so powerfully used here, it is often in the scripture also related to Jesus drinking from a cup. Precisely the cup of judgment. In John 18, verse 11, Jesus had said, Shall I not drink the cup the Father has given me? And the prophets had made clear what that cup was. In Isaiah 51, we read, You who have drunk from the hand of the Lord the cup of His wrath, who have drunk to the dregs the bowl, the cup of staggering. This is what Jesus is undergoing on the cross. Or Psalm 75, For in the hand of the Lord there is a cup with foaming wine well mixed, and He pours out from it, and all the wicked of the earth shall drain it down to the dregs. In this moment on the cross, Jesus has borne the wickedness of his own. And in bearing that wickedness, he has borne the judgment of God. And when we think about that, particularly in the context of John's gospel, that cry, I thirst, as a cry of dereliction, of abandonment, of judgment, must come home to us with its full measure of horror. Because throughout the gospel of John, water has been a sign of healing, a sign of Jesus' power, a symbol of eternal life. And Jesus has made wonderful promises, spiritual promises, symbolized to his people in terms of water. In John 7.37, we find recorded, If anyone thirsts, let him come to me and drink. In John 6.35, Jesus promises, Whoever believes in me shall never thirst. And in John 4.14, Jesus promised, Whoever drinks of the water that I will give him will never be thirsty, forever. The water that I will give him will become in him a spring of water, welling up to eternal life. You see the horror of this. He who is the water of life. He who brings to his own the water of eternal life is dying of thirst under the judgment of God. He has promised that we will never be thirsty. We will never know judgment if we are in him precisely because he took our thirst, our judgment upon himself. And so these words, I thirst, are the words of the forsaken Savior. The words of the forsaken Savior. Jesus dying in our place. Jesus bearing our judgment. Jesus, the water of life forsaken, that we might have the water of life. And as John presents to us this powerful picture of the forsaken Savior, he also shows that this forsakenness is the fulfillment of Scripture. John, many times in his Gospel, but in a particularly concentrated way near the end of the Gospel, talks over and over again about how what is happening to Jesus is the fulfillment of what was prophesied. In just a few verses, in John 19 alone, four times he talks about the scripture fulfilled. And that particularly in relation to Jesus' thirst. Verse 28 of chapter 19, after this, Jesus knowing that all was now finished, or we could translate that, all was now fulfilled, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. everything that was happening to Jesus everything that Jesus was doing is a fulfillment of the plan of God the plan of God that God had revealed clearly in the scriptures to his people that they might know what to expect and yet how utterly they had misunderstood how utterly they had failed to see that their Savior would be a forsaken Savior, a suffering Savior, but that that was the message of the Scriptures. And when he speaks about the Scriptures being fulfilled, surely one of the Scriptures in mind was that Psalm 69 that we read. I am weary with my crying out, my throat is parched, my eyes grow dim with waiting for my God. It has been said, I think exactly rightly, that we learn more of the emotional life of Jesus from the Psalter than from any other part of the Bible. The Gospels often tell us the facts of his life, but don't often lift the curtain that we might see his experience, his emotions, his sensations of what he's going through. More in number than the hairs of my head are those who hate me without cause. Mighty are those who would destroy me, those who attack me with lies. This is the suffering that our Savior underwent on the cross, knowing his innocence, knowing the injustice visited upon him, knowing that he was hated without a cause. Verse 9 of Psalm 69, we know, was quoted early in John's Gospel, for zeal for your house has consumed me. He is so dedicated to the will of God, to the purposes of God, that he is literally burned up with it. And what that means at the cross is that the reproaches of those who reproach you have fallen on me. Jesus is saying, and they're hating me. They are really hating you, Father. For I have come from you, and I have done your will. Or think of how Psalm 69 prophesies his experience at verse 14. Deliver me from sinking in the mire. Let me be delivered from my enemies and from the deep waters. Or again in verse 16 and 17. Answer me, O Lord, for your steadfast love is good according to your abundant mercy. Turn to me. Hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress. Make haste to answer me. And yet the suffering of the Savior was that God did seem to turn his face. Darkness covered the earth. and Christ was abandoned to judgment on the cross. And that depth of suffering, then, we see in verses 20 and 21 of Psalm 69, Reproaches have broken my heart so that I am in despair. I looked for pity, but there was none, and for comforters, but I found none. They gave me poison for food. And for my thirst, they gave me sour wine to drink. Jesus, in John 6, you remember, had given to hungry people bread. Multiplied bread for the 5,000 and said to them, More than that, I will give you the bread of heaven, the bread of eternal life. But they give to him poison. he had given the water of life. But they give to him only sour wine to increase his thirst. You see, all of this was prophesied. All of this was made known to the people of God what the forsakenness of the Savior would be so that they would understand his coming and the meaning of his death so that they would see in his experiences proof of who he was. And that seeing Jesus and seeing how he fulfilled the scriptures, they would believe. John has one single overwhelming purpose in the writing of his gospel. He never loses sight of it. He focuses on it from beginning to end. And that single purpose is that we might believe that Jesus is the one sent from God, that Jesus is the Son of God, that Jesus is the Savior, that Jesus is the fulfillment of all God planned and prophesied, and that we would trust him, we would believe in him, we would commit ourselves to him and find in him our life and our hope. The forsaken Savior is the fulfillment of Scripture. And he is the finishing of salvation. He has done it all. He has done it all. There remains nothing more to be done for our salvation. That's why John records as his last word from the cross, it is finished. You know, one of the interesting things that John does in his gospel is he compares Christ's work of recreation to God's original work of creation. At the beginning of his gospel, he takes us back even before creation, doesn't he? In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. Here, too, I think we have an echo of creation. In Genesis 2, 2, we read, And on the seventh day, God finished His work that He had done, and He rested. As God finished his work of creation and entered into his rest, so John is telling us, Jesus has finished his work of salvation and will enter into his rest. It's done. It's completed. It's perfect. He has done it all. He has borne all the thirst, all the judgment, all the pain for all his people. It's too good to be true. But it is true. It's finished. He has taken away our sin. He has taken away our judgment. And he has brought the waters of life. John almost can't stop piling up the texts and the prophecies. He's like a preacher who gets going and just can't seem to find an end. And he says, you know, it's also prophesied that not one of his bones would be broken. Which is a sign, boys and girls, not only that God is watching over him and protecting him, even in that agony of the cross. But it's also a reminder that the Passover lamb's bones were not to be broken. Jesus died as the fulfillment of all that the Passover lamb had pointed to. You remember the whole point of the Passover lamb, don't you, boys and girls, about how the blood of that lamb was to be taken and put on the doorposts of the house so that the angel of death would pass by and they would be spared because of the blood and so it is with our Jesus he was pierced but not broken and Zechariah had prophesied on that day there shall be a fountain open for the house of David and the inhabitants of Jerusalem to cleanse them from sin and uncleanness when they looked on him whom they had pierced they saw from his side flow the water and the blood that would cleanse them from sin and reconcile them to God that is why we gather tonight that is why we worship Christ as our God and as our Savior and that is why we gathered as a believing community We gather as those who have believed the report, the report of the prophets, the report of the apostles. And when they say to us, Jesus is the suffering Savior, the promised Savior, the saving Savior, we believe it. And tonight, the word goes out to each and every one of us here. Do you believe it? Have you received from Jesus the water of life? Has that life that has welled up in Jesus flowed out into your life? Washing away your sin. Filling you with confidence that you will never thirst the thirst of judgment. But you will enjoy forever in Jesus the water of eternal life. God grant that that might be true of each of us here tonight. Amen. Let us pray. O Lord our God, how we thank you for your word. So clear, so powerful, so arresting. We thank you even more for the one to whom the word leads us, our Lord Jesus Christ. And, O Lord, we pray that our hearts might be filled with love and with gratitude and with faith. That, having loved his own, he loved us to the end and finished all things for us that we might have life in him. Fill us all here tonight with hope in believing, O Lord. And may Jesus be glorified among us. Hear us, for we pray in his name. Amen.