Thirst.
“I am thirsty.”
The last thing the Living Water spoke before proclaiming, “It is finished.”
His first miracle on the third day of a wedding; turning water in six stone jars made for cleansing, into wine. Six, the number of man, but on day three the Son of Man would redeem all of mankind. And now this Nazarene leaving the earth, proclaims His thirst.
And just like the stone jars of cleansing, a hyssop branch lifted a wine-filled sponge to the lips of the Living Stone. The spear soon piercing His side and water spilling out.
Water into wine, then wine into water.
On the third day of a wedding, redemption found in stone jars covered their shame. But on the third day inside of a stone tomb, redemption robed us in life eternal; allowing each of us to partake in our own wedding…a marriage to the Lamb.
Our Messiah child came into this world at Mary’s water bursting forth, proclaiming the victorious entry of the Last Adam. And as this beautiful baby pierced through the water of a readied womb, He emerged covered in blood. His entry into this world marked by water, then blood. And for the Messiah people, the wine has always meant the blood. And even in His divine birth you see, this heavenly pattern, this water and this blood, have always been.
And now He leaves this world, by poetically pointing to His first miracle, except now turning wine back into water. A divine closure to final redemption. A cleansing for eternity, speaking a higher word over Abel’s blood that cried out from the ground.
No more do we need to beg for a priest, who must cleanse himself with water before sprinkling our atonement onto the brazen altar. For the Lamb of God has reversed this moment for eternity. Water to wine, but now wine to water.
Now my soul knows why David pleaded, “Cleanse me with hyssop and I will be clean. Wash me and I will be whiter than snow.”
Your arms stretched wide with your wounded side, saying we need not wait one more minute to be redeemed. We can take it even here, even now. Oh Jesus, why have we waited so long?
Baptize me in the water that gushed from your body, that like Esther, I could bathe before meeting the King. Like Ruth, be washed before laying at the feet of my Kinsman Redeemer. Like Joseph, be made ready after the King has set me free from my chains.
How long you have been in agony watching your children chained to their brokenness and death, when the water has been freely flowing from the wood of the Cross. Just as the waters at Marah were made sweet as the wood was thrown into it. This sweet, redemptive, healing, cleansing water of freedom is bursting from the flesh of our God Man.
Lord forgive us for not bathing in it freely. No longer bound.
May the sound that storms heaven now, be the sound of a multitude running to dive into the sea of redemption flowing from the side of a Savior. Transformed into a river that never stops flowing from the Throne.
And as you and the Father look down, may you see this river filled with a people swimming in your freedom. No longer ashamed. For we may have gone in as lepers, but we emerge new, as the day we were formed in your right hand. And in-between the shouts of joy and the water capsizing us, may it ripple back to your feet, our anthem and our song…
Free indeed, free indeed, the Son has set us free indeed.
