Love for the heavenly Father triumphs. It has completed His work and remains obedient to His condition to the end.
To the end, it unites obedience to the needs of life with obedience to the will of the heavenly Father.
“That the Scripture might be fulfilled, He says, ‘I thirst.’” In Psalm 21 the Sufferer says: “My tongue cleaves to my jaws,” that is, from burning thirst.
But the Savior now chiefly had in view the following words of the Prophet: “In My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink” (Ps 68:22).
This psalm depicts the Sufferer who suffers without guilt (Ps 68:5-6). He suffers for the glory of God and the honor of God’s house (Ps 68:6-10).
All the pious await the end of His sufferings as their own happiness (Ps 68:7).
The words of this psalm, as typological and prophetic, are read many times in the New Testament.
They appear in Jn 2:17; Jn 15:25; Jn 19:28-29; Acts 1:20; Rom 11:9-10; and Rom 15:3.
The Sufferer says: “They gave Me gall for My food, and in My thirst they gave Me vinegar to drink.”
The first part of this saying was fulfilled when they gave Jesus Christ the darkening bitterness, and He did not receive it.
Now the Savior sees that the rest must be fulfilled, and He says, “I thirst.”
He lives according to the commandments and will of the heavenly Father. Therefore, in fulfillment of His will’s foreordinations, He wishes to be given vinegar to drink.
“I thirst,” cries the Sufferer of Golgotha. And how could He not feel thirst?
“The flesh, dried up by the multitude of sufferings, is tormented by thirst,” says Cyril of Alexandria.
Thirst had to arise already from the exhaustion of strength, worn down by the struggle in Gethsemane, by scourging, by torments of soul, and by carrying the cross.
Most especially, deadly thirst arose as a consequence of crucifixion on the cross.
Because of the rush of blood to the head and heart, and from the loss of blood flowing from the wounds, the whole inward being of the crucified man was consumed by fire.
The vital powers declined. The tongue and throat became dry. Tormenting anguish begged for some coolness.
Our Savior was in this condition. At the end of the forty-day fast in the wilderness He felt hunger.
Now, at the end of the sufferings of the cross, thirst torments Him, thirst which is always more agonizing than hunger.
In the wilderness He did not feel hunger for a long time, as though not feeling His bodily condition.
On the cross, the needs of the body are concentrated in the feeling of thirst. Thirst was the final bodily suffering of the Sufferer of Golgotha.
Yet with what meekness He speaks of His flesh’s extreme need. To whom does He say, “I thirst”?
To the Roman soldiers, those who not only crucified Him, but also mocked Him.
To these people, who had been so unjust to Him, He shows neither His anger nor distrust.
He does not even ask, “Give Me to drink.” Rather, hoping for compassion, He speaks only of His need.
If the Savior, in fulfillment of Scripture, says, “I thirst,” this already shows that His thirst was not bodily thirst alone.
It was also thirst of the spirit. Could the Savior of the world, in His final moments, fail to be occupied by higher desires?
If He bore all His sufferings in silence, then surely He does not say, “I thirst,” for the body’s need alone.
For what, then, did the spirit of the Sufferer of Golgotha thirst?
The object of all His desires is the will of the heavenly Father.
The will of the heavenly Father desired to save humanity by the cross-death of the Son. It appointed thirst, cooled by vinegar, among His sufferings.
The Son hastens to fulfill this will.
“My food is to do the will of Him who sent Me and to accomplish His work,” He had said even before the cross (Jn 4:34).
He now thirsted to give Himself as food to the faithful. “For My flesh,” He had said, “is true food, and My blood is true drink” (Jn 6:55).
He thirsted to open to mankind the spring of new and saving life.
He thirsted, by His ascent into heaven, to open heaven for the sending down to earth of the living waters of the Spirit, the Comforter.
He thirsted that the fire of divine love should be kindled more quickly in cold human hearts by the action of the heavenly Comforter (Lk 12:49).
For this reason He hastens the course of His mortal sufferings.
“And some of those standing by, hearing it, said, ‘Behold, He calls Elijah.’
And immediately one of them ran and took a sponge, filled it with vinegar, put it on a reed, and gave Him to drink” (Mk 15:35-36).
“He said, ‘Let Him be. Let us see whether Elijah will come to take Him down.’ Others said, ‘Let Him be. Let us see whether Elijah will come to save Him’” (Mt 27:49).
Thus Mark and Matthew relate. Their very narration shows that those standing by were moved to give drink to the Sufferer of Golgotha by the Sufferer’s thirst.
John speaks directly of this desire of the divine Jesus (Jn 19:28-29).
THEOSIS