I am thirsty. It is finished.

I am thirsty. So what’s the deal here. Nothing special about this. We’re all thirsty. Have you walked along the last three rows of Marsh or Kroger lately. Even if we think we’re not thirsty we’re reminded of all the ways we ought to handle our thirst. There’s boxed drinks, soft drinks, flavored drinks, sport and energy drinks, or juice drinks. And of course there’s water – tap water or better still the water from the mountain streams of wherever. In today’s world, whoever was responding to Jesus’ request at the foot of the cross, probably would first ask, “what would you like to drink?”

But there is something more going on in these three short words, “I am thirsty.” Not only is it a true reality – one of the results of death on a cross in those times in that arid geography, was the body dehydrated and thirst became intense. However, this statement of Jesus from the cross also is uttered for his followers and the temple priests and Jewish leaders to hear. It was said, as much as not to fulfill the words found in Psalm 69, a very familiar passage to those of the Jewish community gathered at Golgotha, the place of skulls.

The psalmist pleas to God, in Psalm 69,

1  Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

16  Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

17  Do not hide your face from your servant, for I am in distress—make haste to answer me.

18  Draw near to me, redeem me, set me free because of my enemies.

19  You know the insults I receive, and my shame and dishonor; my foes are all known to you.

20  Insults 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.

21  They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

It is hard for us to imagine just exactly the agony Jesus was experiencing at this point, suffering and dieing on the cross. In preparation for this sermon I watched several movie sequences, including “The Passion of the Christ”[1] and “The Gospel of John,” the movie.[2] “The Passion,” - many of you will remember us seeing it two years ago as part of our Maundy Thursday worship service - the movie probably took us deeper than we wanted to go in portraying the pain, the whipping, the agony leading up to the cross,. With the cameras moving in on Jesus, you could see and feel the burning of the Cat of Nine Tails, see those hollow eyes, follow blood trickling from the crown of thorns, as Jesus struggles to plead, “I am thirsty,”

It is worth noting that the scripture doesn’t say who put the hyssop of vinegar to his mouth – movies show guards but his loyal inner circle had moved closer and could possibly have rushed up with their own gifts to offer, as one last witness of their loyalty to him.

In the movie, The Passion of the Christ, a Roman guard stabs a sponge with a pole, drops it into a cup of vinegar and raises it up to the quivering lips of Jesus. Jesus, turns his drooping head to the sponge and, with little energy left in his body, sucks on it.  

Do you catch the imagery here?  Weave it with the Psalm 69 verses.

1  Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck.

16  Answer me, O LORD, for your steadfast love is good; according to your abundant mercy, turn to me.

21  They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink.

Aha, there it is, Jesus the man, one like you and me, not only fulfilling the scripture but, do you suppose, do you suppose possibly even at this moment teaching us what it means to follow him? Not just the risk of death, which it does. Not just the sacrifice, which it does. But do you suppose he is setting us up ultimately for the supreme gift he provides through his death and the hope it gives us in carrying the cross in our lives?

If the words from Jesus on the cross, “I am thirsty”, were to fulfill the scripture so well known to his followers and the religious community, then the words, “It is finished,” declare the consummation of the mission entrusted in him by God.[3] 

The crucifixion scene in the movie, The Gospel of John, missed by most people since it opened in theatres at almost the same time as the highly publicized Mel Gibson movie The Passion of the Christ, provides a poignant image of Jesus, camera at eye level with His anguished head holding an overly large crown of thorns, dried blood on cheeks and outstretched arms. The pause is brief…. He sucks on the vinegar sponge raised up to him, he looks up and out at those on the hillside, and with the last strength in his body proclaims, “It is finished.”

With that his head drops, chin on chest, motionless. Music comes up, body remains motionless for several seconds.

Those three words, “It is finished,” seem so abrupt, so final, so absolute. At that moment, death came to claim the Prince of life. A last chance for the world’s redemption was gone. Even those who had been his followers saw it, at that moment, as the end.[4]

Another translation of these three words from the New English Bible, may give us a different camera angle of the moment. Jesus’ last words in this translation become, “It is accomplished.” “It is accomplished.” Following that utterance he breathed his last.

“It is finished,” or “It is accomplished.” Mere words and yet that is what happened, isn’t it, the passion, the sacrifice, was for the Son to fulfill God’s purpose for His life, to provide us the example that we might live like Him, be God’s continuing presence. His task was finished. It was accomplished. It wasn’t pretty. It was wrought with grief for those who loved him and surrounded Him. It is for us today on this journey.

The price was His life … for our salvation. “It was accomplished.”

"What a sigh of relief!
What a cry of deliverance,
that finally,
after seemingly endless pain
and gasping torment,
it is over at last.
The suffering is ended.
The ordeal is finished
and nothing remains
but the blessed peace of the absence of all sensation.

"He does not merely say, "it is over"
he says, "it is accomplished,
     fulfilled,
     achieved"

"Jesus's cry isn't a cry of defeat and despair

"It is a cry of success and triumph
- even at the moment of death -
that the race has been run
that he has endured to the end
that the strife is over
and the battle is won.

"Jesus' cry is a cry of relief to be sure
but it is also a cry of victory:

""The work I came to do is complete"
there is nothing more to add
"it is finished”"[5]

It is accomplished.. Amen

PRAYER
As Jesus said "It is finished", we give thanks for his life of love
and his painful death for us and for our world.
Even at the point of death, he cared about others.
O God, give us like minds and as deep a care for others,
as we commit ourselves and all those dear to us, into your hands.
We especially uphold before you those who are sick and suffering,
those for whom we have special concern.
May they know that neither death nor life nor angels, nor
principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, shall be
able to separate us from the love of God, in Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen