DOMINUS VOBISCUM!
During and immediately after the agony in the Garden of Gethsemani, there was no entry in the gospels of the four evangelists that the Son of Man complained of thirst.
During and immediately after His arrest by a battalion of able-bodied armed soldiers, He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after His presentation to the high priests and elders of the Jewish Sanhedrin, He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after His initial encounter with the Roman Procurator Pontius Pilate, He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after the atrocious “Scourging at the Pillar”, He was silently suffering. He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after the “Crowning with Thorns”, He was silently in pain. He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after the unparalleled brutal and bloody ascent to Golgotha with the heavy cross on His shoulders on foot, He fell down several times but He did not complain of thirst.
During and immediately after the merciless and beastly nailing of His hands and feet, the suffering God did not complain of thirst.
It was soon after the Cross was raised up at the summit of a wide open mountain; the Cross upon which the massively bleeding, exhausted, butchered body of the Messiah was glued by nails, blood and sweat that He screamed and shouted at the top of His voice: “I thirst!” If it were a whisper, a delirious gasp or a weak moan, it will not be heard with clarity and recorded for posterity by those eyewitnesses at the foot of the Cross. Nobody will hear it given the open situation on a cloudy, windy mountain top interrupted even by bolts of lightning and thunderstorms. He had enough energy to scream and shout meaningful so-called “seven last words” despite the barbaric slaughter He underwent with almost no let-up from His arrest up to the moment the Cross was erected. Can that be human? Give it a thought!
On the basis of the dramatic scenes of the Passion up to the climax of how He conducted Himself at the Crucifixion, it certainly defies common sense and human logic to conclude outright that the meaningful “seven last words” He vocalized strongly from the Cross were utterances of a dying human person. It is not compatible with the realities of terrestrial life.
A dying human person lying recumbent on its deathbed is so weak and fragile that it cannot even sit up by itself. How much more if it will be hanged erect and nailed the way the Son of Man was hanged? Surely, it will not be able to vocalize strongly a series of so-called “seven last words” on an open mountain top even if it is helped along by a loud speaker. The actuations of the Crucified Christ recalls to mind the words of the prophet Isaiah: “his ways are not our ways…” His ways are always divine and never human. It is the Christian religions with no exceptions that are imputing human flavor upon His Person and His acts. It is the hidden diabolic doctrine of “Phariseeism”.
Looking over and pondering the circumstances upon which the “seven last words” were delivered with clarity supposedly at the point of death, it is distinctly clear that the Person hanged and nailed on the cross atop Calvary more than two thousand years ago cannot be human. There was nothing human with the Person from His conception up to His Ascension. He walked comfortably on a berserk body of water. Peter, a human person, attempted to duplicate the act. He submerged. “His ways are not our ways.”
When He emphasized to Pontius Pilate that His kingdom is not this world, He was again drawing the line between the divine and the human. He belongs to heaven and it is there were He rules. He performed exhibitions of divinity called miracles upon His glorious visitation but the “brood of serpents” downplayed it as evil. He kept on underscoring His Divinity in words and in deeds but the all-knowing religious of the time closed their eyes. They were consumed with hatred. They insisted that He cannot be more than a prophet. He was just a mere carpenter’s son.
Keep in mind that persons in heaven are immortal. They do not need oxygen to survive. Human persons need oxygen to survive in this damned world. When a human person sleeps the bodily excursions of breathing are evident. When a divine Person sleeps there are no bodily excursions of breathing because it does not need oxygen. That is what the Crucified Christ did after He shouted: “It is finished!” He just slept as a divine Person and everybody thought He died just as any other human being. “His ways are not our ways.” His ways are divine. The oxygen that animates every living being on earth belongs to Him. He took it out from the fruitless fig tree with a curse: “Never again shall you bear fruit!” It withered in a flash witnessed by His disciples. He gave it back to the mummified and decomposing Lazarus. Everybody knows what happened after that.
When the Crucified Christ shouted and screamed “I thirst!” He was not thirsting for water. He was not human. He was thirsting for love. He was thirsting for what He commanded at the crucial stage of His teaching ministry. It was unconditional love for God that He taught and demanded: “Love God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your strength and with all your mind.” However, what He got were not only expletives of extreme hatred but beastly inhuman acts of hatred with all the might of misguided religious ferocity of the Scribes and the Pharisees. They threw everything at Him including the proverbial kitchen sink. What was given Him was the exact reverse of what He commanded and thirst for. It was hate, not love.
Peace to everyone!
Another very inspirational as well as educational article. Yes, Jesus thirst for our love then and today.. Praise the Lord for this article. you are an instrument God uses to spread His words.