At The Cross: The Wine-Soaked Sponge John 19:28-30
I can’t help it.
It’s just the way I am.
Nobody’s perfect.
I’m only human.
I’m not Jesus.
Of course Jesus could resist temptation…of course He
could remain faithful…after all, He might have been a man, but He is also God. We’re not.
How many times have we said one of these things…or
something like these?
We say these things most often when we are confronted with
the fact that we are continually struggling with sin; when we find ourselves
giving into the temptation to do something that we know we really shouldn’t be
doing; when we are trying to excuse behavior that we don’t really want to stop
or make the effort to stop.
And yet…here in today’s gift from the cross…we find
those statements, those excuses, fall flat.
The day had been long…walked back and forth from the Sanhedrin to Pilate
from Pilate to Herod from Herod back to Pilate…from being drug into the
courtyard to be whipped and beaten to being mocked and ridiculed…from being
paraded through the streets forced to bear the means of his execution to having
the spikes driven through his flesh…from having the cross bang home as it was
slid into it’s hole to the hours of hanging there stripped of clothing and
dignity, each breath a labored effort…and then, just before breathing His last,
Jesus looks down and says, “I am thirsty,” and those standing below the cross
took a sponge soaked in wine, placed it on the end of a hyssop branch, and held
it up to Jesus’ lips, and he drank.
Did we catch what Jesus said that prompted that
sponge? We heard him say, “I am
thirsty.” But did we catch what he said
in the words behind “I am thirsty”?
Throughout most of the Gospel of John we encounter a
Jesus who doesn’t need anything. John
paints a picture of a Jesus that is more a Superman than a Clark Kent kind of
guy. There is no birth narrative here,
so we don’t have the picture of Jesus as a fragile baby. There’s no story of Jesus being baptized
alongside those who were coming to be baptized for the repentance of sin. Even when Jesus comes to the woman at the
well, supposedly tired from all the travels, He asks her for a drink, a
request, as the story unfolds, that seems to center more around a conversation
He wanted to have with the woman that having anything to do with a need to
quench a dry throat. He never once said
he was thirsty, He just asked the woman to draw him a drink of water from the
well…and the next thing we hear out of him is that “If you knew who was asking
you for a drink, you would ask me to give you something to drink.” Jesus never once mentions being hungry or
thirsty throughout his traveling ministry in the Gospel of John…all the time He
says that those who are hungry and thirsty should come to Him, and if they do,
they will never hunger and thirst…because He is the Bread of Life and He offers
Living Water. Yet here, on the cross, Jesus
says, “I am thirsty.”
So do you hear it now?
Jesus, the words behind His words, says to those who will hear, “Remember,
I am one of you, I am one with you.”
Jesus in declaring His thirst declares that He is just as human as the
rest of us—that He is just as much Clark Kent as He is Superman—that he has the
same needs and faces the same things that all of us face. How is it that Jesus can be both God and
Human?
We’ve heard it before, but hear these words from Paul
once more: “Christ Jesus…though he was in the form of God, did not regard
equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself…being born
in human likeness…found in human form….”[i].
Luke says, “While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child.
And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and
laid him in a manger...and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel
before he was conceived in the womb.”[ii]
Jesus wasn’t just like a human…He was fully human…born
like us from His mother’s womb…voluntarily emptying Himself of all divine power. He hungered like us. He thirsted like us. He needed sleep and rest like us.
The author of Hebrews reminds us that He was temped
like us: “For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our
weaknesses, but we have one who in every respect has been tested as we are, yet
without sin.”[iii] Jesus was tempted with all the temptations we
are faced with---the temptation to put himself first, the temptation to pursue
power over sacrifice, the temptation question who He was before God, the
temptation of pleasure, the temptation of fame, the temptation for fortune, the
temptation to retaliate, the temptation to avoid suffering…he endured all of
them, without sin. He didn’t employ any
super powers to endure and resist those temptations. He didn’t choose right over wrong because He
turned it over to His divine natured….He endured them all…as one of us, as one
with us….and He did so without giving in to the temptation. Jesus didn’t overcome temptation because He
wanted to do something that we couldn’t achieve…Jesus desired to show us what
we could do…that we could overcome temptation…even Paul reminds us through His
words to the Church in Corinth[iv]
that God won’t let us be tested or tempted beyond our capacity to endure it,
that with every temptation God allows us to face, God provides a way out. When we are faced with temptation…Jesus says,
“I am thirsty…I am one of you…I am one with you…you don’t have to give in…I
remained faithful…you can remain faithful.”
If we want to argue that the pressure in the world is
too great to be faithful to God. That
there is no way we can endure all the weight that is placed on our shoulders,
we need to be reminded that the one who bore the weight of the cross also bore
the weight of the world upon His shoulders, and He said to us, “Come to me all
you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest”[v]
and Jesus acknowledges that we are going to face a lot of trials and troubles,
but to stay strong because, Jesus says, “In the world you will face
persecution…[in the world you are going to have troubles]. But take courage; I have conquered the
world!”[vi]
How does that give us courage? Because if Jesus
conquered the world, then we too can conquer anything that the world throws
against us. In fact, Paul reminds us,
not only can we conquer any trials, temptations, or troubles that the world
brings against us, “in all these things we are more than conquerors through him
who loved us.”[vii] When we are faced with what seems like
insurmountable pressure, pressure that seems like it is going to squash
us…Jesus says, “I am thirsty…I am one of you…I am one with you…you will not be
destroyed…I overcame…you can overcome.”
Sometimes it may feel like we are being
crucified. We’ve tried to do the right
thing…we’ve tried to walk in the steps of Christ…and the evil of the world is
seeking to destroy us. We’ve done the
right things for the right reasons, and rather than those around us patting us
on the back or, better yet, giving thanks to God for our presence, someone
turns and the nails don’t feel like they are being driven into our hands or
feet, but directly into our hearts. When
we feel like we’re dying…even when we might be dying…Jesus says, “I am
thirsty…I am one of you…I am one with you…because I live…you also will live.”[viii]
As Jesus says, “I am thirsty,” Jesus is saying to us,
“I am one of you…I am one with you…don’t sell yourselves short…don’t consider
yourselves too weak…don’t count yourselves out…what I have done, you can do.”
Still struggling with the idea that Christ’s human
nature says to us that we can do what Christ does?
Whose image are we created in? We are created in the Image of God.[ix]
What does the image of God look like? It looks like Jesus who is “the image of the
invisible God.”[x]
Whose breath filled the lungs of Jesus? Jesus is the
Son of God, therefore God Himself, it is the very breath of God.
Whose breath gives us life? In Genesis, we read that God formed man from
the dust of the ground and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life.[xi]
Whose Spirit dwelt within Jesus? Jesus is the Son of
God, therefore God Himself, it is the Spirit of God that dwells within Him.
Whose Spirit dwells within us? According to Paul, “God’s spirit dwells in [us].”[xii]
My brothers and sisters…that wine-soaked sponge
reminds us that we can resist, we can overcome, we can endure, we can live.
Jesus says, “I am thirsty.”
Jesus says, “I am human too.”
Jesus says, “You were created to be the way that I
am.”
Jesus says, “You can help it.”
Thanks be to God…
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the
Holy Spirit. Amen.
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