“My strength is dried up like baked clay; my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth. You put me into the dust of death.” (Psalm 22:15 CSB)

The Scripture is filled with the promises of God, which are fulfilled by Jesus Christ. These prophecies remind us of the detail of God’s work in preparing the way for Jesus to come. One of these promised prophecies is fulfilled by Jesus on the cross, but it also reminds us of who Jesus is and what He had come to do.

While Jesus was on the cross, He becomes thirsty. “Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’” (John 19:28) It is with this common need, that Jesus completes His task of taking our sins upon Him on the cross. After receiving a drink from a sponge filled with wine vinegar, He says, “’It is finished.’ With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” With His death, as the Son of God, He was able to receive the “wages of sin” (Romans 6:23) for all.

When the people of Israel left Egypt, one of their complaints was lack of water and a thirst that needed quenched. “But the people were thirsty for water there, and they grumbled against Moses. They said, ‘Why did you bring us up out of Egypt to make us and our children and livestock die of thirst?’” (Exodus 17:3) After all that God had done for the people, as they watched Him bring them out of slavery, their complaint was that God brought them to this point for them to die. In God’s mercy, He supplies them with water from a rock.

Jesus is traveling through Sameria in the middle of the day. He meets a woman who has come to draw water and asks her for a drink. She is surprised because of the division between Jews and Samaritans. Jesus says, “If you knew the gift of God and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water. . .. Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty 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.” (John 4:10, 13-14) Later at the festival in Jerusalem, Jesus would tell the people, “’Let anyone who is thirsty come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as Scripture has said, rivers of living water will flow from within them.’ By this he meant the Spirit, whom those who believed in him were later to receive. Up to that time the Spirit had not been given, since Jesus had not yet been glorified.” (John 7:37-39)

As Jesus takes our sin upon Himself and now is thirsty, He is the one who will supply our water to quinch our thirst. It begins as He and the Father send us the Holy Spirit. It is also given to us for all eternity. “Then the angel showed me the river of the water of life, as clear as crystal, flowing from the throne of God and of the Lamb down the middle of the great street of the city. . .. The Spirit and the bride say, ‘Come!’ And let the one who hears say, ‘Come!’ Let the one who is thirsty come; and let the one who wishes take the free gift of the water of life.” (Revelation 22:1-2,17)

In the Love of Jesus,

Michael Block