Rev. T. J. Longley.
Rev. A. H. Stanton.
Archbishop Alexander.
I. There are many roads to Christ on His Cross, and some of us will come by one road, and some by another.
(a) Some—many nowadays, perhaps most—are repelled by the mystery of that dark wrath, by the tremendous issues which weave themselves round and about the Sacrifice. They recoil from the theology which strains to unravel something of the secret. They fear to ask what is there, what is this hidden struggle. Why evil? why hell? Why did not God sweep it away with one stroke of His hand? So it staggers and bewilders, and to many that road is shut off.
(b) Will they come near by the other road? Will they come near to Christ through the strange sympathetic thrill of human brotherhood? In tender confidential trust, through the pathos of the weakness, and the trouble, and the pain—will that draw them? will that help them to come closer? Jesus says to them still, ‘I thirst. I am human, I am your brother, I am as you are; I feel, I suffer, I am very weary and heavy laden, and I cannot hide it. I open my heart to you, and I am wounded by your neglect; I am unhappy, I thirst.’
II. Jesus is not ashamed to show Himself on this weak human side.—Run up to Him and recognise Him, and clasp Him. Let Him make His entry into your heart. Only remember, though you were sensitive to His humanising touch, yet there are other sides true as this, hidden now to you. This same Jesus, Whom you love for saying so simply ‘I thirst,’ is He Who speaks also in the high language, when He tells you, ‘I and My Father are one,’ ‘Father, glorify Thy Son with the glory that I had with Thee before the world was.’ The two are intertwined. The Gospel of John is the Gospel of the highest, but the Gospel also of the lowest, the Gospel of a high union between the Son and the Father, the Gospel which tells you of the heavenliest, sweetest, gentlest, humblest beauties of the Lord’s human nature, the Gospel which tells you how He said, ‘I thirst.’ And do not, therefore, because you can only see one side of the Lord, deny the other, or think you see all because you feel the tender drawing of His word, ‘I thirst.’
III. And those who are drawn towards the high theological dogmatic vision of God Incarnate, of the atonement of blood, of Him Who enters in within the holy place carrying that with Him—do not, because of that, be afraid to recognise Him Whom you rightly adore in this poor Sufferer Who so humbly appeals to your help and pity by His plaintive ‘I thirst.’
Rev. Canon H. Scott Holland.
Illustration
‘The expression “I thirst” was chiefly used in order to afford a public testimony of the reality and intensity of His bodily sufferings, and to prevent any one supposing, because of His marvellous calmness and patience, that He was miraculously free from suffering. On the contrary, He would have all around Him know that He felt what all severely wounded persons, and especially all crucified persons felt—a burning and consuming thirst. So that when we read that “He suffered for sins,” we are to understand that He really and truly suffered. Henry observes, “The torments of hell are represented by a violent thirst, in the complaint of the rich man who begged for a drop of water to cool his tongue. To that everlasting thirst we had all been condemned, if Christ had not suffered on the Cross, and said, ‘I thirst.’ ” ’
Rev. A. Osborne Jay.
Rev. F. W. Metcalfe.