“I thirst.” — John 19:28
As I was meditating on this verse, I went through mixed feelings. As a first reaction I went on the obvious and peripheral interpretation. This was a very natural, obvious condition of someone who has gone through so much of physical stress. Being thirsty must have been a sign of extreme physical exhaustion caused by the extreme desert heat, excessive sweating, blood loss. This also shows that He was showing all the signs of being a human being. Then one question that came to my mind, changed my perception and got a totally different view. Jesus was suffering extreme physical and mental agony from past so many hours and not once did mention anything about His hunger, pain, stress. When Jesus was walking up the mountain, one lady was crying at Him to whom Jesus said, cry for yourself and your children. Do not cry for me. Then one question came to my mind, why only thirst? Why not hunger or pain and is there something more to this voice of the cross.
I then remembered one more instance where Jesus was thirsty and asked for water to drink. This happened on the way to Galilee. Jesus and the disciples had to travel through Samaria. We read in John 4: 4-27 that He came to a town of Samaria called Sychar, near the property that Jacob had given to his son Joseph. He sat at the well as the disciples went to get food and was waiting for the Samaritan woman to come. This is the time Jesus asked for water and the Samaritan woman was surprised that a Jew is asking for water from a Samaritan. This was because the Jews hated Samaritans, to such a degree that the Jews had destroyed the Samaritans’ temple on Mount Gerizim. The Samaritans in turn hated the Jews. Ancestrally, Samaritans claimed to be the descent from the tribe of Ephraim and tribe of Manasseh (two sons of Joseph). Joseph while in Egypt married Asenath, a high-born, aristocratic Egyptian woman. The two sons born to Asenath were considered to be Gentiles who were grafted into the 12 tribes of Jews. Jacob while blessing all the 12 sons had also blessed Joseph’s two sons, Manasseh and Ephraim, to share in Jacob’s inheritance equally with Jacob’s own sons (Genesis 48:5). This was the background the relationship between the Jews and the Samaritans. Jesus goes to a Samaritan a woman and asks for water. The disciples were amazed as they saw Jesus talking to a Samaritan woman. Did they not see Jesus talk to people earlier? May be that Jesus who is, a Jew was asking for water from a Samaritan woman surprised them.
The conversation between them reveals a lot, Jesus tells her about what she was hiding, she in turn is asking a few obvious questions. Jesus now reveals about a time that is coming very soon. Jesus told her,
Believe Me, woman, an hour is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. But an hour is coming, and is now here, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth. Yes, the Father wants such people to worship Him. God is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
This was fulfilled on the Cross and now Jesus cried out aloud, “I thirst” and what I further heard Jesus say, “Everyone who drinks from this water will get thirsty again. But whoever drinks from the water that I will give him will never get thirsty again—ever! In fact, the water I will give him will become a well of water springing up within him for eternal life.”
Author: Dr. Ajit Onawale
