Isaiah 52:13-53/ Hebrew 4:14-16, 5:7-9/ John 18:1-19,42
We have just heard the gospel account of the passion of our Lord Jesus Christ.
I would like to reflect with you the last few sentences of the Lord Jesus before He died on the cross.
Nailed to the cross, He saw His mother and said to her : Woman, this is your son.
And then to the beloved disciple, he said : This is your mother.
After this, Jesus knew that everything had now been completed, and to fulfill the scriptures perfectly, He said : I am thirsty.
He said this to mean that despite His helpless and hopeless situation on the cross, He is still longing for God to save Him.
And God did save Jesus. But God did not save Him from death.
Rather, God save Him out of death. God saved Jesus out of death by raising Him from the dead.
So out of a hopeless and helpless situation, God showed His power and might through the resurrection of Jesus.
So by saying that He was thirsty, He was actually saying that He was putting all His faith in the saving power of God.
And that is what we should be hoping and thirsting for – that we share in the victory of the resurrection of Christ.
Later, as we come forward to venerate the cross, we are showing that we believe that carrying the cross and dying to ourselves, we will also experience the saving power of God.
That is our hope in God. That is also our belief in God who is our mighty Saviour.