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. After preaching his first sermon at the age of 16, he became pastor of the church in Waterbeach at the age of 17. "Deliver him to the tormentors," was the word of the king in the parable; it shall be fulfilled to you "Depart ye cursed into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels." Then they said, "Hail, King of the Jews!" And they struck Him with their hands. 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. We ought not to forget the Jews. He is exiled from their friendship, too. While other religions create what appear to be worship-filled gatherings, they are empty and void of fact. Well, then, what means this cry, "I thirst," but this, that we should thirst too? 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. As not a bone of him shall be broken, so not a word shall be lost. "Women, behold thy son!" When Pilate therefore heard that saying, he was the more afraid: It shows he was afraid all along the coward the vacillating coward and now a fresh superstition seizes upon him. Nay more; he is banished from their society, as if he were a leper whose breath would be infectious whose presence would scatter plague. 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. 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. And what makes him love us so? Jesus was deserted of God; and if he, who was only imputedly a sinner, was deserted, how much more shall you be? John 19:16 . Fix your hearts upon some unsaved one, and thirst until he is saved. Behold, my King is not without his crown alas, a crown of thorns set with ruby drops of blood! There are many other ways in which these words might be read, and they would be found to be all full of instruction. Well, beloved, the cross we have to carry is only for a little while at most. It is calculated that one soul passes from time into eternity every time the clock ticks! The Via Dolorosa, as the Romanists call it, is a long street at the present time, but it may have been but a few yards. 19:1-18 Little did Pilate think with what holy regard these sufferings of Christ would, in after-ages, be thought upon and spoken of by the best and greatest of men. The most careless eye discerns it. He did not spare his Son the stripes. We would fain lift thy name on high in grateful remembrance of the depths to which thou didst descend! 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. Sister, thirst for the salvation of your class, thirst for the redemption of your family, thirst for the conversion of your husband. Commentary on John 19:31-37 (Read John 19:31-37) A trial was made whether Jesus was dead. The tender mercies of the wicked are cruel, they cannot spare him the agonies of dying on the cross, they will therefore remit the labor of carrying it. Your heir of royalty is magnificently drawn along the streets in his stately chariot, sitting at his ease: my princely sufferer walks with weary feet, marking the road with crimson drops; not borne, but bearing; not carried, but carrying his cross. 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. Save your tears for them; Christ asks them not in sympathy for himself. 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." We may well remember our faults this day. 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. "His way was much rougher and darker than mine; Did Christ, my Lord, suffer, and shall I repine?". 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. It is done. Did he not tell his disciples, "I have a baptism to be baptized with, and how am I straitened till it be accomplished?" Brother, thirst I pray you to have your workpeople saved. The lictors executed their cruel office upon his shoulders with their rods and scourges, until the stripes had reached the full number. Christ does exempt you from sin, but not from sorrow; he does take the curse of the cross, but he does not take the cross of the curse away from you. Amen. The mind of man is like the daughters of the horseleech, which cry for ever, "Give, give." 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. 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. The Lord bless you, for Jesus' own sake. I do not think we should seek after needless persecution. There are more unlikely things than that you will be dead before next Sunday. Go ye, then, like the Master, expecting to be abused, to wear an ill-name, and to earn reproach; go ye, like him, without the camp. John 18:19-40 - Glory on Trial A. Some of them have no objection to worship with a poor congregation till they grow rich, and then, forsooth, they must go with the world's church, to mingle with fashion and gentility. For him they have no tolerance. You have seen Jesus led away by his enemies; so shall you be dragged away by fiends to the place appointed for you. the people saw him in the street, not arrayed in the purple robe, but wearing his garment without seam, woven from the top throughout, the common smock-frock, in fact, of the countrymen of Palestine, and they said at once, "Yes, 'tis he, the man who healed the sick, and raised the dead; the mighty teacher who was wont to sit upon the mountain-top, or stand in the temple courts and preach with authority, and not as the Scribes." Even as the hart panteth after the water brooks, our souls would thirst after thee, O God. Come hither, ye lovers of Immanuel, and I will show you this great sight the King of sorrow marching to his throne of grief, the cross. O to be enlarged in soul so as to take deeper draughts of his sweet love, for our heart cannot have enough. He derived spiritual refreshment from the winning of that women's heart to himself. You do suffer. 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." You have blessed company; your path is marked with footprints of your Lord. John 19:4-5. Spurgeon left this earth for his heavenly hope in 1892. There were two other cross-bearers in the throng; they were malefactors; their crosses were just as heavy as the Lord's, and yet, at least, one of them had no sympathy with him, and his bearing the cross only led to his death, and not to his salvation. It does not often happen that five or six thousand people meet together twice; it never does, I suppose; the scythe of death must cut some of you down before my voice shall warn you again! Let each of us say "Tis all my business here below To cry, Behold the Lamb!" John 1:30-31. In the multitude there was a sparse sprinkling of tender-hearted women, probably those who had been healed, or whose children had been blessed by him. But further, my brethren; this, I think, is the great lesson from Christ's being slaughtered without the gate of the city let us go forth, therefore, without the camp, bearing his reproach. Neither in torture of body nor in sadness of heart are we deserted by our Lord; his line is parallel with ours. It was a thirst such as none of us have ever known, for not yet has the death dew condensed upon our brows. The high places of earth's worship and honor are not for us. Weep not for him, but for these. 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. We will now take the text in a third way, and may the Spirit of God instruct us once again. 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. Brother, thirst to have your children save. 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. 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. 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. 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. IV. We all know that a different dress will often raise a doubt about the identity of an individual; but lo! 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." 'Tis his cross, and he goes before you as a shepherd goes before his sheep. What, then, dear friends, should be the sorrows excited by a view of Christ's sufferings? 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. 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. 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. The world has in former days counted it God's service to kill the saints. "He that hath ears to hear, let him hear." For his sake we may rejoice in self-denials, and accept Christ and a crust as all we desire between here and heaven. 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. The utterance of "I thirst" brought out A TYPE OF MAN'S TREATMENT OF HIS LORD. What knocks he for? The sufferings of Christ should make us weep over those who have brought that blood upon their heads. 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. "I reckon that these light afflictions, which are but for a moment, are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us." Oh, wondrous substitution of the just for the unjust, of God for man, of the perfect Christ for us guilty, hell-deserving rebels. The Christian faith and motives for Christian worship are based on the certainty of facts. 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. Is not this a fertile field of thought? Oh I raise the question, and be not satisfied unless you can answer it most positively in the affirmative. Though Simon had to bear the cross for a very little while, it gave him lasting honor. This was intended at once to proclaim his guilt and intimate his doom. He is indeed "Immanuel, God with us" everywhere. Some of these were persons of considerable rank; many of them had ministered to him of their substance; amidst the din and howling of the crowd, and the noise of the soldiery, they raised an exceeding loud and bitter cry, like Rachel weeping for her children, who would not be comforted, because they were not. And intimate his doom Christian worship are based on the certainty of facts time the clock!... 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