‘I thirst.’ (John 19:28)
In Greek, this one-word cry of Jesus expresses something of the physical agony He suffered on the cross. Jesus was, we must remember, fully human; He is the Word made flesh (John 1:14) and as a human being, He suffered the physical pain and horror of crucifixion, one of the most cruel forms of execution ever known. This cry is a reminder that our ordinary physical needs must be included in prayer. Jesus taught us to pray for our daily bread (Matt 6:11) and we have to acknowledge that we have these ordinary, everyday needs which must not be removed from our spiritual life. To attempt to do so is to live a life that is not fully whole,a life that is not integrated but compartmentalised falsely into ‘physical’ and ‘spiritual’, divided into ‘secular’ and ‘sacred.’
Throughout history, people have wanted to separate the physical from the spiritual. Heretics have separated the two natures of Christ, either believing He was fully God but could not possibly have embraced the physical indignities of being human or believing He was fully man but not fully God. So often, we struggle to understand even how we can be both ‘spirit’ and ‘body’, let alone how Jesus could be both God and Man. As such, we cannot escape from our bodies (however hard we try) and we cannot ignore our spirits (however hard we try.) In the book of Hebrews, we are repeatedly reminded that we have a great High Priest who understands our suffering because He Himself has suffered (Hebrews 2:10, 2:18, 4:16, 13:12). This cry of Jesus from the cross helps us to glimpse that suffering and to understand that He is able to help us when we are tempted, when we suffer, when we reach the end of ourselves. We do not suffer alone, for He has suffered on our behalf.