The Shortest of the Seven Cries

Delivered on Lord's-Day Morning, April 14th, 1878, by

C. H. SPURGEON,

At the Metropolitan Tabernacle, Newington

"After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that
the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst."–John 19:28.

IT was most fitting that every word of our Lord upon the cross should
be gathered up and preserved. As not a bone of him shall be broken, so
not a word shall be lost. The Holy Spirit took special care that each
of the sacred utterances should be fittingly recorded. There were, as
you know, seven of those last words, and seven is the number of
perfection and fulness; the number which blends the three of the
infinite God with the four of complete creation. Our Lord in his
death-cries, as in all else, was perfection itself. There is a fulness
of meaning in each utterance which no man shall be able fully to bring
forth, and when combined they make up a vast deep of thought, which no
human line can fathom. Here, as everywhere else, we are constrained to
say of our Lord, "Never man spake like this man." Amid all the anguish
of his spirit his last words prove him to have remained fully
self-possessed, true to his forgiving nature, true to his kingly
office, true to his filial relationship, true to his God, true to his
love of the written word, true to his glorious work, and true to his
faith in his Father.

As these seven sayings were so faithfully recorded, we do not wonder
that they have frequently been the subject of devout meditation.
Fathers and confessors, preachers and divines have delighted to dwell
upon every syllable of these matchless cries. These solemn sentences
have shone like the seven golden candlesticks or the seven stars of the
Apocalypse, and have lighted multitudes of men to him who spake them.
Thoughtful men have drawn a wealth of meaning from them, and in so
doing have arranged them into different groups, and placed them under
several heads. I cannot give you more than a mere taste of this rich
subject, but I have been most struck with two ways of regarding our
Lord's last words. First, they teach and confirm many of the doctrines
of our holy faith. "Father, forgive them; for they know not what they
do" is the first. Here is the forgiveness of sin–free forgiveness in
answer to the Saviour's plea. "To-day shalt thou be with me in
paradise." Here is the safety of the believer in the hour of his
departure, and his instant admission into the presence of his Lord. It
is a blow at the fable of purgatory which strikes it to the heart.
"Women, behold thy son!" This very plainly sets forth the true and
proper humanity of Christ, who to the end recognised his human
relationship to Mary, of whom he was born. Yet his language teaches us
not to worship her, for he calls her "woman," but to honor him in whom
his direst agony thought of her needs and griefs, as he also thinks of
all his people, for these are his mother and sister and brother. "Eloi,
Eloi, lama sabachthani?" is the fourth cry, and it illustrates the
penalty endured by our Substitute when he bore our sins, and so was
forsaken of his God. The sharpness of that sentence no exposition can
fully disclose to us: it is keen as the very edge and point of the
sword which pierced his heart. "I thirst" is the fifth cry, and its
utterance teaches us the truth of Scripture, for all things were
accomplished, that the Scripture might be fulfilled, and therefore our
Lord said, "I thirst." Holy Scripture remains the basis of our faith,
established by every word and act of our Redeemer. The last word but
one, "It is finished." There is the complete justification of the
believer, since the work by which he is accepted is fully accomplished.
The last of his last words is also taken from the Scriptures, and shows
where his mind was feeding. He cried, ere he bowed the head which he
had held erect amid all his conflict, as one who never yielded,
"Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit." In that cry there is
reconciliation to God. He who stood in our stead has finished all his
work, and now his spirit comes back to the Father, and he brings us
with him. Every word, therefore, you see teaches us some grand
fundamental doctrine of our blessed faith. "He that hath ears to hear,
let him hear."

A second mode of treating these seven cries is to view them as setting
forth the person and offices of our Lord who uttered them. "Father,
forgive them; for they know not what they do"–here we see the Mediator
interceding: Jesus standing before the Father pleading for the guilty.
"Verily I say unto thee, to-day shalt thou be with me in
paradise"–this is the Lord Jesus in kingly power, opening with the key
of David a door which none can shut, admitting into the gates of heaven
the poor soul who had confessed him on the tree. Hail, everlasting King
in heaven, thou dost admit to thy paradise whomsoever thou wilt! Nor
dost thou set a time for waiting, but instantly thou dost set wide the
gate of pearl; thou hast all power in heaven as well as upon earth.
Then came, "Women, behold thy son!" wherein we see the Son of man in
the gentleness of a son caring for his bereaved mother. In the former
cry, as he opened Paradise, you saw the Son of God; now you see him who
was verily and truly born of a women, made under the law; and under the
law you see him still, for he honours his mother and cares for her in
the last article of death. Then comes the "My God, my God, why hast
thou forsaken me?" Here we behold his human soul in anguish, his inmost
heart overwhelmed by the withdrawing of Jehovah's face, and made to cry
out as if in perplexity and amazement. "I thirst," is his human body
tormented by grievous pain. Here you see how the mortal flesh had to
share in the agony of the inward spirit. "It is finished" is the last
word but one, and there you see the perfected Saviour, the Captain of
our salvation, who has completed the undertaking upon which he had
entered, finished transgression, made an end of sin, and brought in
ever lasting righteousness. The last expiring word in which he
commended his spirit to his Father, is the note of acceptance for
himself and for us all. As he commends his spirit into the Father's
hand, so does he bring all believers nigh to God, and henceforth we are
in the hand of the Father, who is greater than all, and none shall
pluck us thence. Is not this a fertile field of thought? May the Holy
Spirit often lead us to glean therein.

There are many other ways in which these words might be read, and they
would be found to be all full of instruction. Like the steps of a
ladder or the links of a golden chain, there is a mutual dependence and
interlinking of each of the cries, so that one leads to another and
that to a third. Separately or in connection our Master's words
overflow with instruction to thoughtful minds: but of all save one I
must say, "Of which we cannot now speak particularly."

Our text is the shortest of all the words of Calvary; it stands as two
words in our language–"I thirst," but in the Greek it is only one. I
cannot say that it is short and sweet, for, alas, it was bitterness
itself to our Lord Jesus; and yet out of its bitterness I trust there
will come great sweetness to us. Though bitter to him in the speaking
it will be sweet to us in the hearing,–so sweet that all the
bitterness of our trials shall be forgotten as we remember the vinegar
and gall of which he drank.

We shall by the assistance of the Holy Spirit try to regard these words
of our Saviour in a five-fold light. First, we shall look upon them as
THE ENSIGN OF HIS TRUE HUMANITY. Jesus said, "I thirst," and this is
the complaint of a man. Our Lord is the Maker of the ocean and the
waters that are above the firmament: it is his hand that stays or opens
the bottles of heaven, and sendeth rain upon the evil and upon the
good. "The sea is his, and he made it," and all fountains and springs
are of his digging. He poureth out the streams that run among the
hills, the torrents which rush adown the mountains, and the flowing
rivers which enrich the plains. One would have said, If he were thirsty
he would not tell us, for all the clouds and rains would be glad to
refresh his brow, and the brooks and streams would joyously flow at his
feet. And yet, though he was Lord of all he had so fully taken upon
himself the form of a servant and was so perfectly made in the likeness
of sinful flesh, that he cried with fainting voice, "I thirst." How
truly man he is; he is, indeed, "bone of our bone and flesh of our
flesh," for he bears our infirmities. I invite you to meditate upon the
true humanity of our Lord very reverently, and very lovingly. Jesus was
proved to be really man, because he suffered the pains which belong to
manhood. Angels cannot suffer thirst. A phantom, as some have called
him, could not suffer in his fashion: but Jesus really suffered, not
only the more refined pains of delicate and sensitive minds, but the
rougher and commoner pangs of flesh and blood. Thirst is a common-place
misery, such as may happen to peasants or beggars; it is a real pain,
and not a thing of a fancy or a nightmare of dreamland. Thirst is no
royal grief, but an evil of universal manhood; Jesus is brother to the
poorest and most humble of our race. Our Lord, however, endured thirst
to an extreme degree, for it was the thirst of death which was upon
him, and more, it was the thirst of one whose death was not a common
one, for "he tasted death for every man." That thirst was caused,
perhaps, in part by the loss of blood, and by the fever created by the
irritation caused by his four grievous wounds. The nails were fastened
in the most sensitive parts of the body, and the wounds were widened as
the weight of his body dragged the nails through his blessed flesh, and
tore his tender nerves. The extreme tension produced a burning
feverishness. It was pain that dried his mouth and made it like an
oven, till he declared, in the language of the twenty-second psalm, "My
tongue cleaveth to my jaws." It was a thirst such as none of us have
ever known, for not yet has the death dew condensed upon our brows. We
shall perhaps know it in our measure in our dying hour, but not yet,
nor ever so terribly as he did. Our Lord felt that grievous drought of
dissolution by which all moisture seems dried up, and the flesh returns
to the dust of death: this those know who have commenced to tread the
valley of the shadow of death. Jesus, being a man, escaped none of the
ills which are allotted to man in death. He is indeed "Immanuel, God
with us" everywhere.

Believing this, let us tenderly feel how very near akin to us our Lord
Jesus has become. You have been ill, and you have been parched with
fever as he was, and then you too have gasped out "I thirst." Your path
runs hard by that of your Master. He said, "I thirst," in order that
one might bring him drink, even as you have wished to have a cooling
draught handed to you when you could not help yourself. Can you help
feeling how very near Jesus is to us when his lips must be moistened
with a sponge, and he must be so dependent upon others as to ask drink
from their hand? Next time your fevered lips murmur "I am very
thirsty," you may say to yourself, "Those are sacred words, for my Lord
spake in that fashion." The words, "I thirst," are a common voice in
death chambers. We can never forget the painful scenes of which we have
been witness, when we have watched the dissolving of the human frame.
Some of those whom we loved very dearly we have seen quite unable to
help themselves; the death sweat has been upon them, and this has been
one of the marks of their approaching dissolution, that they have been
parched with thirst, and could only mutter between their half-closed
lips, "Give me to drink." Ah, beloved, our Lord was so truly man that
all our griefs remind us of him: the next time we are thirsty we may
gaze upon him; and whenever we see a friend faint and thirsting while
dying we may behold our Lord dimly, but truly, mirrored in his members.
How near akin the thirsty Saviour is to us; let us love him more and
more.

How great the love which led him to such a condescension as this! Do
not let us forget the infinite distance between the Lord of glory on
his throne and the Crucified dried up with thirst. A river of the water
of life, pure as crystal, proceedeth to-day out of the throne of God
and of the Lamb, and yet once he condescended to say, "I thirst,"
before his angelic guards, they would surely have emulated the courage
of the men of David when they cut their way to the well of Bethlehem
that was within the gate, and drew water in jeopardy of their lives.
Who among us would not willingly pour out his soul unto death if he
might but give refreshment to the Lord? And yet he placed himself for
our sakes into a position of shame and suffering where none would wait
upon him, but when he cried, "I thirst," they gave him vinegar to
drink. Glorious stoop of our exalted Head! O Lord Jesus, we love thee
and we worship thee! We would fain lift thy name on high in grateful
remembrance of the depths to which thou didst descend!

While thus we admire his condescension let our thoughts also turn with
delight to his sure sympathy: for if Jesus said, "I thirst," then he
knows all our frailties and woes. The next time we are in pain or are
suffering depression of spirit we will remember that our Lord
understands it all, for he has had practical, personal experience of
it. Neither in torture of body nor in sadness of heart are we deserted
by our Lord; his line is parallel with ours. The arrow which has lately
pierced thee, my brother, was first stained with his blood. The cup of
which thou art made to drink, though it be very bitter, bears the mark
of his lips about its brim. He hath traversed the mournful way before
thee, and every footprint thou leavest in the sodden soil is stamped
side by side with his footmarks. Let the sympathy of Christ, then, be
fully believed in and deeply appreciated, since he said, "I thirst."

Henceforth, also, let us cultivate the spirit of resignation, for we
may well rejoice to carry a cross which his shoulders have borne before
us. Beloved, if our Master said, "I thirst," do we expect every day to
drink of streams from Lebanon? He was innocent, and yet he thirsted;
shall we marvel if guilty ones are now and then chastened? If he was so
poor that his garments were stripped from him, and he was hung up upon
the tree, penniless and friendless, hungering and thirsting, will you
henceforth groan and murmur because you bear the yoke of poverty and
want? There is bread upon your table to-day, and there will be at least
a cup of cold water to refresh you. You are not, therefore, so poor as
he. Complain not, then. Shall the servant be above his Master, or the
disciple above his Lord? Let patience have her perfect work. You do
suffer. Perhaps, dear sister, you carry about with you a gnawing
disease which eats at your heart, but Jesus took our sicknesses, and
his cup was more bitter than yours. In your chamber let the gasp of
your Lord as he said, "I thirst," go through your ears, and as you hear
it let it touch your heart and cause you to gird up yourself and say,
"Doth he say, I thirst'? Then I will thirst with him and not complain,
I will suffer with him and not murmur." The Redeemer's cry of "I
thirst" is a solemn lesson of patience to his afflicted.

Once again, as we think of this "I thirst," which proves our Lord's
humanity, let us resolve to shun no denials, but rather court them that
we may be conformed to his image. May we not be half ashamed of our
pleasures when he says, "I thirst"? May we not despise our loaded table
while he is neglected? Shall it ever be a hardship to be denied the
satisfying draught when he said, "I thirst." Shall carnal appetites be
indulged and bodies pampered when Jesus cried :I thirst"? What if the
bread be dry, what if the medicine be nauseous; yet for his thirst
there was no relief but gall and vinegar, and dare we complain? For his
sake we may rejoice in self-denials, and accept Christ and a crust as
all we desire between here and heaven. A Christian living to indulge
the base appetites of a brute beast, to eat and to drink almost to
gluttony and drunkenness, is utterly unworthy of the name. The conquest
of the appetites, the entire subjugation of the flesh, must be
achieved, for before our great Exemplar said, "It is finished," wherein
methinks he reached the greatest height of all, he stood as only upon
the next lower step to that elevation, and said, "I thirst." The power
to suffer for another, the capacity to be self-denying even to an
extreme to accomplish some great work for God–this is a thing to be
sought after, and must be gained before our work is done, and in this
Jesus is before us our example and our strength.

Thus have I tried to spy out a measure of teaching, by using that one
glass for the soul's eye, through which we look upon "I thirst" as the
ensign of his true humanity.

II. Secondly, we shall regard these words, "I thirst," as THE TOKEN OF
HIS SUFFERING SUBSTITUTION. The great Surety says, "I thirst," because
he is placed in the sinner's stead, and he must therefore undergo the
penalty of sin for the ungodly. "My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken
me?" points to the anguish of his soul; "I thirst" expresses in part
the torture of his body; and they were both needful, because it is
written of the God of justice that he is "able to destroy both soul and
body in hell," and the pangs that are due to law are of both kinds,
touching both heart and flesh. See, brethren, where sin begins, and
mark that there it ends. It began with the mouth of appetite, when it
was sinfully gratified, and it ends when a kindred appetite is
graciously denied. Our first parents plucked forbidden fruit, and by
eating slew the race. Appetite was the door of sin, and therefore in
that point our Lord was put to pain. With "I thirst" the evil is
destroyed and receives its expiation. I saw the other day the emblem of
a serpent with its tail in its mouth, and if I carry it a little beyond
the artist's intention the symbol may set forth appetite swallowing up
itself. A carnal appetite of the body, the satisfaction of the desire
for food, first brought us down under the first Adam, and now the pang
of thirst, the denial of what the body craved for, restores us to our
place.

Nor is this all. We know from experience that the present effect of sin
in every man who indulges in it is thirst of soul. The mind of man is
like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, "Give, give."
Metaphorically understood, thirst is dissatisfaction, the craving of
the mind for something which it has not, but which it pines for. Our
Lord says, "If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink," that
thirst being the result of sin in every ungodly man at this moment. Now
Christ standing in the stead of the ungodly suffers thirst as a type of
his enduring the result of sin. More solemn still is the reflection
that according to our Lord's own teaching, thirst will also be the
eternal result of sin, for he says concerning the rich glutton, "In
hell he lift up his eyes, being in torment," and his prayer, which was
denied him, was, "Father Abraham, send Lazarus, that he may dip the tip
of his finger in water and cool my tongue, for I am tormented in this
flame." Now recollect, if Jesus had not thirsted, every one of us would
have thirsted for ever afar off from God, with an impassable gulf
between us and heaven. Our sinful tongues, blistered by the fever of
passion, must have burned for ever had not his tongue been tormented
with thirst in our stead. I suppose that the "I thirst" was uttered
softly, so that perhaps only one and another who stood near the cross
heard it at all; in contrast with the louder cry of "Lama sabachthani"
and the triumphant shout of "It is finished": but that soft, expiring
sigh, "I thirst," has ended for us the thirst which else, insatiably
fierce, had preyed upon us throughout eternity. Oh, wondrous
substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect
Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. Let us magnify and bless
our Redeemer's name.

It seems to me very wonderful that this "I thirst" should be, as it
were, the clearance of it all. He had no sooner said "I thirst," and
sipped the vinegar, than he shouted, "It is finished"; and all was
over: the battle was fought and the victory won for ever, and our great
Deliverer's thirst was the sign of his having smitten the last foe. The
flood of his grief has passed the high-water mark, and began to be
assuaged. The "I thirst" was the bearing of the last pang; what if I
say it was the expression of the fact that his pangs had at last begun
to cease, and their fury had spent itself, and left him able to note
his lessor pains? The excitement of a great struggle makes men forget
thirst and faintness; it is only when all is over that they come back
to themselves and note the spending of their strength. The great agony
of being forsaken by God was over, and he felt faint when the strain
was withdrawn. I like to think of our Lord's saying, "It is finished,"
directly after he had exclaimed, "I thirst"; for these two voices come
so naturally together. Our glorious Samson had been fighting our foes;
heaps upon heaps he had slain his thousands, and now like Samson he was
sore athirst. He sipped of the vinegar, and he was refreshed, and no
sooner has he thrown off the thirst than he shouted like a conqueror,
"It is finished," and quitted the field, covered with renown. Let us
exult as we see our Substitute going through with his work even to the
bitter end, and then with a "Consummatum est" returning to his Father,
God. O souls, burdened with sin, rest ye here, and resting live.

III. We will now take the text in a third way, and may the Spirit of
God instruct us once again. The utterance of "I thirst" brought out A
TYPE OF MAN'S TREATMENT OF HIS LORD. It was a confirmation of the
Scripture testimony with regard to man's natural enmity to God.
According to modern thought man is a very fine and noble creature,
struggling to become better. He is greatly to be commended and admired,
for his sin is said to be seeking after God, and his superstition is a
struggling after light. Great and worshipful being that he is, truth is
to be altered for him, the gospel is to be modulated to suit the tone
of his various generations, and all the arrangements of the universe
are to be rendered subservient to his interests. Justice must fly the
field lest it be severe to so deserving a being; as for punishment, it
must not be whispered to his ears polite. In fact, the tendency is to
exalt man above God and give him the highest place. But such is not the
truthful estimate of man according to the Scriptures: there man is a
fallen creature, with a carnal mind which cannot be reconciled to God;
a worse than brutish creature, rendering evil for good, and treating
his God with vile ingratitude. Alas, man is the slave and the dupe of
Satan, and a black-hearted traitor to his God. Did not the prophecies
say that man would give to his incarnate God gall to eat and vinegar to
drink? It is done. He came to save, and man denied him hospitality: at
the first there was no room for him at the inn, and at the last there
was not one cool cup of water for him to drink; but when he thirsted
they gave him vinegar to drink. This is man's treatment of his Saviour.
Universal manhood, left to itself, rejects, crucifies, and mocks the
Christ of God. This was the act too of man at his best, when he is
moved to pity; for it seems clear that he who lifted up the wet sponge
to the Redeemer's lips, did it in compassion. I think that Roman
soldier meant well, at least well for a rough warrior with his little
light and knowledge. He ran and filled a sponge with vinegar: it was
the best way he knew of putting a few drops of moisture to the lips of
one who was suffering so much; but though he felt a degree of pity, it
was such as one might show to a dog; he felt no reverence, but mocked
as he relieved. We read, "The soldiers also mocked him, offering him
vinegar." When our Lord cried, "Eloi, Eloi," and afterwards said, "I
thirst," the persons around the cross said, "Let be, let us see whether
Elias will come to save him," mocking him; and, according to Mark, he
who gave the vinegar uttered much the same words. He pitied the
sufferer, but he thought so little of him that he joined in the voice
of scorn. Even when man compassionates the sufferings of Christ, and
man would have ceased to be human if he did not, still he scorns him;
the very cup which man gives to Jesus is at once scorn and pity, for
"the tender mercies of the wicked are cruel." See how man at his best
mingles admiration of the Saviour's person with scorn of his claims;
writing books to hold him up as an example and at the same moment
rejecting his deity; admitting that he was a wonderful man, but denying
his most sacred mission; extolling his ethical teaching and then
trampling on his blood: thus giving him drink, but that drink vinegar.
O my hearers, beware of praising Jesus and denying his atoning
sacrifice. Beware of rendering him homage and dishonouring his name at
the same time.

Alas, my brethren, I cannot say much on the score of man's cruelty to
our Lord without touching myself and you. Have we not often given him
vinegar to drink? Did we not do so years ago before we knew him? We
used to melt when we heard about his sufferings, but we did not turn
from our sins. We gave him our tears and then grieved him with our
sins. We thought sometimes that we loved him as we heard the story of
his death, but we did not change our lives for his sake, nor put our
trust in him, and so we gave him vinegar to drink. Nor does the grief
end here, for have not the best works we have ever done, and the best
feelings we ever felt, and the best prayers we have ever offered, been
tart and sour with sin? Can they be compared to generous wine? are they
not more like sharp vinegar? I wonder he has ever received them, as one
marvels why he received this vinegar; and yet he has received them, and
smiled upon us for presenting them. He knew once how to turn water into
wine, and in matchless love he has often turned our sour
drink-offerings into something sweet to himself, though in themselves,
methinks, they have been the juice of sour grapes, sharp enough to set
his teeth on edge. We may therefore come before him, with all the rest
of our race, when God subdues them to repentance by his love, and look
on him whom we have pierced, and mourn for him as one that is in
bitterness for his firstborn. We may well remember our faults this day,

"We, whose proneness to forget

Thy dear love, on Olivet

Bathed thy brow with bloody sweat;

"We whose sins, with awful power,

Like a cloud did o'er thee lower,

In that God-excluding hour;

"We, who still, in thought and dead,

Often hold the bitter reed

To thee, in thy time of need."

I have touched that point very lightly because I want a little more
time to dwell upon a fourth view of this scene. May the Holy Ghost help
us to hear a fourth tuning of the dolorous music, "I thirst."

IV. I think, beloved friends, that the cry of "I thirst" was THE
MYSTICAL EXPRESSION OF THE DESIRE OF HIS HEART–"I thirst." I cannot
think that natural thirst was all he felt. He thirsted for water
doubtless, but his soul was thirsty in a higher sense; indeed, he seems
only to have spoken that the Scriptures might be fulfilled as to the
offering him vinegar. Always was he in harmony with himself, and his
own body was always expressive of his soul's cravings as well as of its
own longings. "I thirst" meant that his heart was thirsting to save
men. This thirst had been on him from the earliest of his earthly days.
"Wist ye not," said he, while yet a boy, "that I must be about my
Father's business?" Did he not tell his disciples, "I have a baptism to
be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" He
thirsted to pluck us from between the jaws of hell, to pay our
redemption price, and set us free from the eternal condemnation which
hung over us; and when on the cross the work was almost done his thirst
was not assuaged, and could not be till he could say, "It is finished."
It is almost done, thou Christ of God; thou hast almost saved thy
people; there remaineth but one thing more, that thou shouldst actually
die, and hence thy strong desire to come to the end and complete thy
labour. Thou wast still straightened till the last pang was felt and
the last word spoken to complete to full redemption, and hence thy cry,
"I thirst."

Beloved, there is now upon our Master, and there always has been, a
thirst after the love of his people. Do you not remember how that
thirst of his was strong in the old days of the prophet? Call to mind
his complaint in the fifth chapter of Isaiah, "Now will I sing to my
wellbeloved a song of my beloved touching his vineyard. My wellbeloved
hath a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and he fenced it, and gathered
out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and
built a tower in the midst of it, and also made a winepress therein."
What was he looking for from his vineyard and its winepress? What but
for the juice of the vine that he might be refreshed? "And he looked
that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild
grapes,"–vinegar, and not wine; sourness, and not sweetness. So he was
thirsting then. According to the sacred canticle of love, in the fifth
chapter of the Song of Songs, we learn that when he drank in those
olden times it was in the garden of his church that he was refreshed.
What doth he say? "I am come into my garden, my sister, my spouse: I
have gathered my myrrh with my spice; I have eaten my honeycomb with my
honey; I have drunk my wine with my milk; eat, O friends; drink, yea,
drink abundantly, O beloved." In the same song he speaks of his church,
and says, "The roof of thy mouth is as the best wine for my beloved,
that goeth down sweetly, causing the lips of those that are asleep to
speak." And yet again in the eighth chapter the bride saith, "I would
cause thee to drink of spiced wine of the juice of my pomegranate."
Yes, he loves to be with his people; they are the garden where he walks
for refreshment, and their love, their graces, are the milk and wine
which he delights to drink. Christ was always thirsty to save men, and
to be loved of men; and we see a type of his life-long desire when,
being weary, he sat thus on the well and said to the woman of Samaria,
"Give me to drink." There was a deeper meaning in his words than she
dreamed of, as a verse further down fully proves, when he said to his
disciples, "I have meat to eat that ye know not of." He derived
spiritual refreshment from the winning of that women's heart to
himself.

And now, brethren, our blessed Lord has at this time a thirst for
communion with each one of you who are his people, not because you can
do him good, but because he can do you good. He thirsts to bless you
and to receive your grateful love in return; he thirsts to see you
looking with believing eye to his fulness, and holding out your
emptiness that he may supply it. He saith, "Behold, I stand at the door
and knock." What knocks he for? It is that he may eat and drink with
you, for he promises that if we open to him he will enter in and sup
with us and we with him. He is thirsty still, you see, for our poor
love, and surely we cannot deny it to him. Come let us pour out full
flagons, until his joy is fulfilled in us. And what makes him love us
so? Ah, that I cannot tell, except his own great love. He must love, it
is his nature. He must love his chosen whom he has once begun to love,
for he is the same yesterday, to-day, and for ever. His great love
makes him thirst to have us much nearer than we are; he will never be
satisfied till all his redeemed are beyond gunshot of thee enemy. I
will give you one of his thirsty prayers–"Father, I will that they
also whom thou hast given me be with me where I am, that they may
behold my glory." He wants you brother, he wants you, dear sister, he
longs to have you wholly to himself. Come to him in prayer, come to him
in fellowship, come to him by perfect consecration, come to him by
surrendering your whole being to the sweet mysterious influences of his
Spirit. Sit at his feet with Mary, lean on his breast with John; yea,
come with the spouse in the song and say, "Let him kiss me with the
kisses of his mouth, for his love is better than wine." He calls for
that: will you not give it to him? Are you so frozen at heart that not
a cup of cold water can be melted for Jesus? Are you lukewarm? O
brother, if he says, "I thirst" and you bring him a lukewarm heart,
that is worse than vinegar, for he has said, "I will spue thee out of
my mouth." He can receive vinegar, but not lukewarm love. Come, bring
him your warm heart, and let him drink from that purified chalice as
much as he wills. Let all your love be his. I know he loves to receive
from you, because he delights even in a cup of cold water that you give
to one of his disciples; how much more will he delight in the giving of
your whole self to him? Therefore while he thirsts give him to drink
this day.

V. Lastly, the cry of "I thirst" is to us THE PATTERN OF OUR DEATH WITH
HIM. Know ye not, beloved,–for I speak to those who know the
Lord,–that ye are crucified together with Christ? Well, then, what
means this cry, "I thirst," but this, that we should thirst too? We do
not thirst after the old manner wherein we were bitterly afflicted, for
he hath said, "He that drinketh of this water shall never thirst:" but
now we covet a new thirst. A refined and heavenly appetite, a craving
for our Lord. O thou blessed Master, if we are indeed nailed up to the
tree with thee, give us a thirst after thee with a thirst which only
the cup of "the new covenant in thy blood" can ever satisfy. Certain
philosophers have said that they love the pursuit of truth even better
than the knowledge of truth. I differ from them greatly, but I will say
this, that next to the actual enjoyment of my Lord's presence I love to
hunger and to thirst after him. Rutherford used words somewhat to this
effect, "I thirst for my Lord and this is joy; a joy which no man
taketh from me. Even if I may not come at him, yet shall I be full of
consolation, for it is heaven to thirst after him, and surely he will
never deny a poor soul liberty to admire him, and adore him, and thirst
after him." As for myself, I would grow more and more insatiable after
my divine Lord, and when I have much of him I would still cry for more;
and then for more, and still for more. My heart shall not be content
till he is all in all to me, and I am altogether lost in him. O to be
enlarged in soul so as to take deeper draughts of his sweet love, for
our heart cannot have enough. One would wish to be as a spouse, who,
when she had already been feasting in the banqueting-house, and had
found his fruit sweet to her taste, so that she was overjoyed, yet
cried out, "Stay me with flagons, comfort me with apples, for I am sick
of love." She craved full flagons of love though she was already
overpowered by it. This is a kind of sweet whereof if a man hath much
he must have more, and when he hath more he is under a still greater
necessity to receive more, and so on, his appetite for ever growing by
that which it feeds upon, till he is filled with all the fulness of
God. "I thirst,"–ay, this is my soul's word with her Lord. Borrowed
from his lips it well suiteth my mouth.

"I thirst, but not as once I did,

The vain delights of earth to share;

Thy wounds, Emmanuel, all forbid

That I should seek my pleasures there.

Dear fountain of delight unknown!

No longer sink below the brim;

But overflow, and pour me down

A living and life-giving stream."

Jesus thirsted, then let us thirst in this dry and thirsty land where
no water is. Even as the hart panteth after the water brooks, our souls
would thirst after thee, O God.

Beloved, let us thirst for the souls of our fellow-men. I have already
told you that such was our Lord's mystical desire; let it be ours also.
Brother, thirst to have your children save. Brother, thirst I pray you
to have your workpeople saved. Sister, thirst for the salvation of your
class, thirst for the redemption of your family, thirst for the
conversion of your husband. We ought all to have a longing for
conversions. It is so with each one of you? If not, bestir yourselves
at once. Fix your hearts upon some unsaved one, and thirst until he is
saved. It is the way whereby many shall be brought to Christ, when this
blessed soul-thirst of true Christian charity shall be upon those who
are themselves saved. Remember how Paul said, "I say the truth in
Christ, I lie not, my conscience also bearing me witness in the Holy
Ghost that I have great heaviness and continual sorrow in my heart. For
I could wish that myself were accursed from Christ for my brethren, my
kinsmen according to the flesh." He would have sacrificed himself to
save his countrymen, so heartily did he desire their eternal welfare.
Let this mind be in you also.

As for yourselves, thirst after perfection. Hunger and thirst after
righteousness, for you shall be filled. Hate sin, and heartily loathe
it; but thirst to be holy as God is holy, thirst to be like Christ,
thirst to bring glory to his sacred name by complete conformity to his
will.

May the Holy Ghost work in you the complete pattern of Christ
crucified, and to him shall be praise for ever and ever. Amen.

PORTIONS OF SCRIPTURE READ BEFORE SERMON–Mark 15:15-37; Psalm 69:1-21.