Thank God for us His thirst was for more than just water.
Divine? Human? Must we choose? Perhaps it’s both.
In making this third pronouncement from the cross, to his mother, Mary, and his dear friend, John, Jesus simultaneously carried out two tasks – one earthly, one heavenly – while crucially prioritizing one over the other.
He was a zealous Jew who perhaps once had one version of the Messiah in mind, and came to appreciate another: the real one.
Long ago Moses climbed atop Mt. Sinai to see and hear wonderful things from the mouth of God. When we study the Gospels we ascend a Hill called Golgotha – the place of the skull – to hear the voice of God’s dying Lamb.
Jesus’ prayer of mercy is not only for those who were unwitting participants in the hour of his death, but an intercession from our High Priest on behalf of all humanity