The Word of Suffering

Do you know the name Jimmy Donaldson? You might recognize him by his online alias, MrBeast. He is a highly paid and highly viewed YouTuber known for his expensive stunts and philanthropy. His fast-paced, high-production videos often feature elaborate challenges and large donations. On June 1, 2024, he became YouTube's most-subscribed creator, surpassing T-Series. Donaldson is also the founder of Feastables, a global snacking company that started producing kosher-certified chocolate in 2022. Why do I mention Mr. Beast when introducing this sermon? He is notorious in this generation for creating a spectacle. Tony Reinke helpfully defines a spectacle as: “a moment of time, of varying length, in which collective gaze is fixed on some specific image, event, or moment. A spectacle is something that captures human attention, an instant when our eyes and brains focus and fixate on something projected at us.” He goes on to say: “Why do we seek spectacles? Because we’re human—hardwired with an unquenchable appetite to see glory. Our hearts seek splendor as our eyes scan for greatness. We cannot help it. “The world aches to be awed. That ache was made for God. The world seeks it mainly through movies”—and in entertainment and politics and true crime and celebrity gossip and warfare and live sports. Unfortunately, we are all very easily conned into wasting our time on what adds no value to our lives. Aldous Huxley called it “man’s almost infinite appetite for distraction.” 

Today, I get about 30 minutes to draw your heart and eyes away to another spectacle. Indeed, we might say what we’re considering in these few weeks leading up to Easter is THE spectacle. Again, I can’t say it better than Tony does: “Into the spectacle-loving world, with all of its spectacle makers and spectacle-making industries, came the grandest Spectacle ever devised in the mind of God and brought about in world history—the cross of Christ. It is the hinge of history, the point of contact between BC and AD, where all time collides, where all human spectacles meet one unsurpassed, cosmic, divine spectacle.

“The act of crucifixion, repeated thousands of times in the Roman Empire, was a spectacle guaranteed to attract attention. The nailing of living bodies onto trees along public roads was a Roman bloodsport for the masses—public and visible, not confined to the arena. Symbolically, crucifixion was the flexing arm of Rome’s ruling power before gawking spectators in public. So vile was the punishment that, by law, Roman citizens could not be crucified. The cross was reserved for the public dehumanization of rebel slaves, a form of intimidation to keep Rome’s large servile class suppressed, intimidated, and ordered.

“The goal of crucifixion was nothing short of the “elimination of victims from consideration as members of the human race,” a “ritualized extermination” of offenders unfit to live. It was role play, says one theologian—“the mocking and jeering that accompanied crucifixion were not only allowed, they were part of the spectacle and were programmed into it.” Crucifixion was masochistic participation. “Everyone understood that the specific role of the passersby was to exacerbate the dehumanization and degradation of the person who had been thus designated to be a spectacle. Crucifixion was cleverly designed—we might say diabolically designed—to be an almost theatrical enactment of the sadistic and inhumane impulses that lie within human beings.”

What’s amazing is that Jesus Christ, our Lord, didn’t despise the shame or humiliation but went there willingly to save people like you and me. Jesus’s death on the cross is our boast. It’s what we glory in. It moves us in a way that MrBeast or another mover or shaker in our world could only dream of. I hope to wow you with Jesus today and provoke your heart to worship as we look at two simple words Jesus spoke from the cross: “I thirst.” 

One writer is caught up in these words and says, “I thirst.” What a text for a sermon! A short one it is true, yet how comprehensive, how expressive, and how tragic! The Maker of heaven and earth with parched lips! The Lord of Glory in need of a drink! The Beloved of the Father crying, “I thirst!” What a scene! What a word is this! Plainly, no uninspired pen drew such a picture.” I hope we walk away in awe and wonder as we lean into this today; join me then as we see 3 ways Jesus’s thirst provokes our worship…

Read John 19:28-29 (This is God’s Word; thanks be to God)

After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 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.

3 ways Jesus’s thirst provokes our worship…

First of all, I. It reveals Jesus’s humanity.

Jesus saying, “I thirst,” shows us His humanity. When He says this, he is stating that He is indeed thirsty. Now, it’s significant. Crucifixion was a death by suffocation. You had to push up on the nail in your feet to be able to speak, so each time Jesus speaks, we’re given something costly. But, speaking of being thirsty, Jesus reminds us from the cross that He experiences what humans experience. As the Nicene Creed puts it: “We believe in one Lord, Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God, eternally begotten of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, true God from true God, begotten, not made, of one Being with the Father; through him all things were made. For us and for our salvation he came down from heaven, was incarnate from the Holy Spirit and the Virgin Mary, and was made man. For our sake he was crucified under Pontius Pilate; he suffered death and was buried. On the third day he rose again in accordance with the Scriptures; he ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end.” He became human for us and for our salvation. 

Another writer, Luke Stamps, summarizes the humanity of Jesus: “As a human, Jesus experienced all the ordinary, non-sinful limitations of humanity. He grew and developed. He experienced hunger, thirst, weariness, and the full range of human emotions. His humanity was as integral to his saving work as his divinity. As the true human, the last Adam, he lived out obedience to God through our common humanity as our representative and substitute: through his life, death, and resurrection, he merits salvation for all who are united to him by faith. As a human, he also serves as our example, providing a model for true human obedience.”

So, when we hear Jesus say, “I thirst,” I hope your heart is drawn to worship that we have a Savior who is human like us. We don’t have an alien or a person faking humanity, like a robot or some AI-generated, I get you, but we have one who really does. Jesus’s thirst reveals His humanity.

Secondly, this provokes worship for us as II. It shows Jesus’s focus.

John’s Gospel provides this narrative for the church. It also shows that Jesus spoke of this at a particular time and moment. Look at that passage we read a few moments ago: “After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 29 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.” Part of Jesus saying, “I thirst,” related to knowing that all that He was sent to do was finished. Think of all that Jesus may have been mindful of in this moment. The plan from eternity past brought through His being born in Bethlehem, growing in wisdom and stature and favor with God and man, His earthly ministry, and His view of the salvation He was accomplishing for people past, present, and future, knowing this, He said, “I thirst.” 

Also, to fulfill Scripture, He said, “I thirst.” This is another angle on Jesus’s focus. Everything He accomplished in His life fulfilled Scripture. In this case, as one writer put it, “The reference is to Psalm 69—another of the Messianic psalms which describes so graphically His passion. In [this Psalm] the spirit of prophecy had declared, “They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink” (v. 21). This remained yet unaccomplished. The predictions of the previous verses had already received fulfillment. He had sunk in the “deep mire” (v. 2); he had been “hated without a cause” (v. 4); he had “borne reproach and dishonor” (v. 7); he had “become a stranger to his brothers” (v. 8); he had become “a byword” to his revilers, and “the song of the drunkards” (vv. 11, 12); he had “cried unto God” in his distress (vv. 17–20)—and now there remained nothing more than the offering him the drink of sour wine, and to fulfill this he cried “I thirst.” 

Do you see Jesus’s focus? Even on the cross, He is relentlessly focused on the work that He had come to accomplish. He is focusing on completing all that is needed for our salvation. Who else is worthy of our worship?

Third and finally, Jesus’s thirst provokes our worship as III. It prepares us for Jesus’s victory.

This is answering the question of why thirst is a big deal at this moment. I mean, Jesus was offered a drink previously in this narrative. Mark’s Gospel spoke of wine mixed with myrrh once Jesus arrived at Golgotha. This was likely a pain relief measure, which Jesus refused. But, when Jesus says I thirst here, He is given “A cheap wine, called posca, that was common among Roman soldiers and the lower classes.” Think wine vinegar or something we might use to flavor something. The soldiers serve it on a hyssop branch, which immediately reminds us of all the times in the Bible when hyssop is used in cleansing. So, Jesus thirsts and is given some relief.

And what comes next? When Jesus took the drink, He said, “It is finished.” We’ll get to that next week. But this drink prepares Jesus to announce His victory. As such, Jesus’s announcement of thirst is helping us anticipate all that Jesus is accomplishing on the cross and how that will lead to the defeat of our sin, our enemy, our guilt, and our shame. Jesus’s thirst was part of this. And it provokes worship. We praise God that Jesus was obedient to death, even death on a cross because this will lead to His exaltation forever. 

In conclusion, today we’ve seen 3 ways Jesus’s thirst provokes our worship…

I. It reveals Jesus’s humanity.

II. His thirst shows Jesus’s focus.

III. It prepares us for Jesus’s victory.

Coming full circle, do you see what a spectacle Jesus’s death was for us? Even in His thirst, He’s pointing to something beyond Himself and calling our hearts heavenward. Today, if you don’t have a relationship with Him, would you turn from the spectacles of your life to Him? Trust that Jesus was dying for you to make you right with God, to cleanse you from your sin, to give you victory over what would hold you captive. Believe and know salvation in Him. And, if you know Him, may it never be that we would boast or lose our wonder in anything but the cross. Look to Jesus today and see His eyes on you. See His focused determination to achieve victory for you. Worship Him. Today, we’ve pressed after this. So, press on to know Jesus to make Him known, glorifying and enjoying Him forever.