LENT R EFLECT EF EFLE LECT LE CTIO ION IO N LENT REFLECTION
The words from the cross Major John Waters continues his series for Lent, reflecting on ‘the word of distress’
‘I
AM thirsty’ (John 19:28). Mark says that an anonymous bystander offered Jesus a sponge soaked in vinegar, and Matthew and Luke both follow this account, although Luke, possibly more plausibly, implies that it was a soldier who did so. It is probably of little significance either way. The incident came to be seen as a fulfilment of Psalm 69:21 where the sufferer is tormented by being given poisoned food for his hunger and vinegar for his thirst, and in Luke’s narration the offering is linked to the mockery of Jesus by bystanders and soldiers. But there is a tradition that sympathetic spectators, in an attempt to alleviate the suffering of victims, would offer wine to dull the senses. Since the word for vinegar is also used to mean cheap sour wine it remains possible that this offering was also in the nature of a humane response to the anguish of Jesus. A significant difference in John’s story is that he shows Jesus taking the initiative. The offering is neither the gratuitous action of sympathetic Jews nor the mocking derision of his enemies but is a consequence of Jesus’ control of the events: ‘I am thirsty.’ Significant also is the emphasis on the humanity of Jesus; he was a real man. The saying is, of course, the only one of the seven sayings that refers to his physical suffering but it is important because it is part of the evidence to refute claims that Jesus was either not fully human or not fully divine. Numerous teachers, loosely described
14
Salvationist 6 April 2019
as Gnostics, believed that the gap between the ineffable deity and humankind was so great as to require a series of beings arranged in a progressive hierarchy. Starting with the lowest, who could tolerate relationships with humankind, there was a gradual detachment until the last position was sufficiently remote from humankind to allow contact with the divine. As with the pagan mystics, human nature was something from which to escape; an essentially unholy state that hindered or even prevented spiritual attainment. Not so with the Christian faith, which firmly resisted the heresy called Docetism with its belief that Jesus only appeared to be human. Human nature was part of the purpose in God’s creation, and the Genesis creation story records that God saw it and it was good. Truly it had not remained wholly good, and was now something to be
‘
The 2nd-century Irenaeus taught that Jesus became what we are in order to make us what he is himself
’
redeemed, but Jesus, the real man, showed how this could be. The 2nd-century Irenaeus taught that Jesus became what we are in order to make us what he is himself. And the 4th-century Nicene Creed declares: ‘We believe… in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten Son of God… being of one substance with the Father…. Who for us men and for our salvation came down from Heaven, and was incarnate by the Holy Ghost of the Virgin Mary, and was made man.’ As the Letter to the Hebrews says, ‘He had to become like his brothers and sisters in every respect, so that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make a sacrifice of atonement for the sins of the people’ (2:17 New Revised Standard Version). The short saying from the cross is a significant reminder of the humanity of our Lord.
MAJOR WATERS LIVES IN RETIREMENT IN BIDDULPH MOOR
