This past Sunday we continued our Lenten Sermon Series on the seven sayings of Christ from the cross. We focused on Jesus’ fifth statement: “I thirst.”

To thirst is one of the most natural and necessary facets of human life. The average adult body is 57-60% composed of water! If we don’t intake water frequently enough then we dehydrate. Dehydration can very quickly lead to all kinds of physical problems, including death. Water is a necessity of life.

This was clearly exampled for us, historically, in Israel’s exodus from Egypt. The day God brought Israel through the Red Sea on dry ground, He also drown Pharaoh’s pursuing army behind them. On that day, as Exodus 15 tells us, there was much rejoicing in Israel! Three days later Israel was were complaining. They’d journeyed for three days into the wilderness without being able to find a suitable source for water. They were desperately thirsty! And while they complained against God and against Moses, God’s response was to graciously provide fresh water for them by cleansing waters that were previously not suitable for them to drink. Once they had a drink, the Lord led them to a campsite with palm trees and fresh springs.

This happened time and time again. In Exodus 17 we read of how Israel was again thirsty and grumbling and complaining against God and against Moses. This time it was at Horeb. It’s not that the water at Horeb was bad or undrinkable. It’s that there was no water at Horeb. Why would God lead them to a place where the very thing they would need for survival—water—would be missing? It was here that God tested Israel. It was here that God told Moses to strike the rock and water (the water that they needed for life) would flow from the rock. And that’s exactly what happened.

God’s gracious provision for Israel for their physical thirst was meant to foreshadow His gracious provision for their spiritual thirst. As a matter of fact, the Apostle Paul tells us in 1 Corinthians 10:4 that Israel “drank from the spiritual Rock that followed them, and the Rock was Christ.” Of course, this wasn’t necessarily a lesson that the majority of Israel embraced at the time. They didn’t link their thirst and God’s provision in the physical realm with the corresponding spiritual truth: That if they were going to have spiritual life then God would have to graciously provide it for them.

They missed the correlation; I wonder how many times I’ve done the same? How often do I miss the fact that my physical need, and God’s constant provision, is meant to bring me to a deeper faith in Him and a reliance upon His grace alone?

Fast forward to the cross; Jesus, knowing that all things were now complete, said, “I thirst.” For Jesus (who was God incarnate) things are happening in reverse. His experience of thirst—His great physical need—was necessary in order to provide the satisfaction for our spiritual thirst. In short, He thirsted physically so that we would no longer thirst spiritually. He was the Rock being smitten to provide the water of life for our thirsty souls!

God knows what we need and has provided everything for us in Christ Jesus.

~ Daniel Gettemy