Manna and Coffee

“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), “I thirst.” 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. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, “It is finished,” and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John 19:28-39

I have an amazing wife. She excels at being a wife, a mother, a grandmother, a devoted daughter of the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, and as an interior decorator. A few weeks ago my wife asked me if she could order a new picture to put in our living room. She warned me that it was a little costly, but that she really wanted it, because it had a beautiful Bible verse on it.

I wish that I could tell you that I held the same enthusiasm as my wife did about this new picture. The truth is that I grumbled about the price and the work that I knew that it would take to hang another large picture in our home. My sweet wife was saddened but relented.

A few days later, I was looking at new Lego sets to buy, and then remembered that Ann wanted a picture with the Word of God on it. I was convicted and told her to go ahead and order whatever she wanted. I was looking for things to satisfy my flesh and my wife was looking for things to satisfy her soul.

I wish that I could tell you that my heart was changed about that picture on that day, but it got worse. The picture arrived and it was indeed beautiful. To my relief, it was not nearly as bad as I thought it would be to hang. The issue came when Ann told me that she would like a light to shine on the picture to illuminate it at night and draw attention to the words on it. I was still feeling like my wife’s hero after buying her a picture that she really wanted so I ordered her the light too.

When the light came I assumed that it would be easy to hang it up above the picture, but it actually turned out to be a nightmare. You see, the light came with an adhesive back, and when I placed it on the wall, I realized that it was not centered above the picture frame. When I pulled the light from the wall to reposition it, a chunk of drywall came out stuck to the light.

My admiring wife’s smiles turned to frowns when I cussed several times in anger. Tears are welling up in my eyes as I type this devotional while looking at this beautiful picture with Jesus’ last words on it. My Savior suffered an unjust death for me, and for you, and the best that I could muster hovering over the last words of Christ in that moment, was too cuss about a chunk of drywall sticking to the back of our new picture light.

I’m not telling you this to feel sorry for me, I’m telling you this because I’ve learned over the years that there is no such thing as microwave sanctification. Sanctification is a life-long process, and God often uses pain and suffering to mold us into the men and women that God created us to be. Even the Son of God was perfected through suffering. Hebrews 2:10 says,

“In bringing many sons and daughters to glory, it was fitting that God, for whom and through whom everything exists, should make the pioneer of their salvation perfect through what he suffered.”

Have you ever wondered why Jesus said, “I thirst,” right before he died? Jesus was likely thirsty because He was dehydrated from loss of blood. He was bloodied by the hands of lost, stupid men like me, who were oblivious to the fact that God was in their midsts.

Jesus was likely thinking of Psalm 22, where in verse 1 the psalmist lamented “my God, my God why have you forsaken me.” When Jesus willing took the sin of the world upon himself on the cross, He experienced separation from God for the very first time, and it was more than he could bear, way worse than the physical pain he was experiencing. Jesus also may have been recalling verses 14-15 of Psalm 22, where it says, “I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax, it has melted away within me. My strength is dried up like a potsherd (a broken piece of ceramic material), and my tongue sticks to the roof of my mouth; you lay me in the dust of death.”

I wonder if the other reason that Jesus uttered these two words to the men who had nailed him to a cross to die, was because He was thirsting for Heaven. He wanted the men who beat and killed Him to thirst for Heaven too. Jesus knew that He was only moments away from death. After tasting the sour wine he said three more words, “It is finished.”

Do you have a thirst for Heaven, or are the only things that you have been thirsting for lately the things of this world? Don’t worry, you are not alone. I put my thirst in the wrong places more often than I should too.

Jesus’ thirst was perfect. Jesus’ death was necessary. Jesus’ resurrection was real.

Why do I think that Jesus was calling us to thirst for Heaven as He suffered on the cross? Because of Jesus’ words that are recored in forth chapter of the Gospel of John;

“So he came to a town in Samaria called Sychar, near the plot of ground Jacob had given to his son Joseph. Jacob’s well was there, and Jesus, tired as he was from the journey, sat down by the well. It was about noon. When a Samaritan woman came to draw water, Jesus said to her, “Will you give me a drink?” (His disciples had gone into the town to buy food.) The Samaritan woman said to him, “You are a Jew and I am a Samaritan woman. How can you ask me for a drink?” (For Jews do not associate with Samaritans.) Jesus answered her, “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.” “Sir,” the woman said, “you have nothing to draw with and the well is deep. Where can you get this living water? Are you greater than our father Jacob, who gave us the well and drank from it himself, as did also his sons and his livestock?” Jesus answered, “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.” The woman said to him, “Sir, give me this water so that I won’t get thirsty and have to keep coming here to draw water.” He told her, “Go, call your husband and come back.” “I have no husband,” she replied. Jesus said to her, “You are right when you say you have no husband. The fact is, you have had five husbands, and the man you now have is not your husband. What you have just said is quite true.” “Sir,” the woman said, “I can see that you are a prophet. Our ancestors worshiped on this mountain, but you Jews claim that the place where we must worship is in Jerusalem.” “Woman,” Jesus replied, “believe me, a time is coming when you will worship the Father neither on this mountain nor in Jerusalem. You Samaritans worship what you do not know; we worship what we do know, for salvation is from the Jews. Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in the Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is spirit, and his worshipers must worship in the Spirit and in truth.” The woman said, “I know that Messiah” (called Christ) “is coming. When he comes, he will explain everything to us.” Then Jesus declared, “I, the one speaking to you—I am he.” – John 4:5-25

Dear friend, you don’t have to pretend that you have it all together to impress God and men. The truth is that no man or woman has it all together all the time. Jesus knows the real you that nobody sees, and He still loves you. Thirst for Living Water. Thirst for Him.