Blog Archive
Wednesday, April 1, 2026
THE FAMILY ALTAR - F.W. Herzberger (1922)
April 1.
"I thirst." John 19:28.
"They gave Me also gall for My meat; and in My thirst
they gave Me vinegar to drink !" This prophecy of Psalm 69
was fulfilled; for when our dying Lord cried out in His great
thirst, we are told in the Passion history that there was set a vessel
full of vinegar near the cross, and they filled a sponge with vinegar,
and put it upon hyssop, and put it to His mouth. "I thirst!"
Oh, what intense suffering these two little words disclose on many
a sick and dying bed ! But how much more pitiful they sound
on the parching lips of our Lord consumed by His long, long
sufferings of body and soul ! "I thirst !" So He cries out whose
lips invited so kindly : "If any man thirst, let him come unto Me,
and drink." (John 7:37) How His burning thirst ought to cut
us to the heart when we consider that He suffers it for our sake!
In vain does the rich man in hell plead for a drop of water to
cool his parching tongue. That would have been our fate but
for this our thirsting and atoning Savior. When He said to the
woman of Samaria, at Jacob's well (John 4, 7) : "Give Me to
drink," He thirsted, above all, for her poor, perishing soul. He
says to her: "Whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give
him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall
be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life."
That longing fills His heart to-day while He is sitting on His
throne of glory, as it did in the days of His flesh and there on
the cross. He is come to seek and to save that which was lost.
He thirsts after us that we may thirst after Him. Let us not
deny His loving plea. Let us go to Him in humble, penitent
faith, and He will fulfil His gracious promise also in us: "He
that cometh to Me shall never hunger; and he that believeth on
Me shall never thirst." (John 6:35) Well might the sun in darkness
hide,
Alas! and did my Savior bleed
And did my Sov'reign die?
Would He devote that sacred
head For such a worm as I?
Was it for crimes that I had
done
He groaned upon the tree?
Amazing pity, grace unknown,
And love beyond degree!
And shut his glories in,
When God, the mighty Maker, died
For man the creature's sin!
Thus might I hide my blushing
face,
While His dear cross appears;
Dissolve my heart in thankfulness,
And melt my eyes in tears.
But drops of grief can ne'er repay
The debt of love I owe;
Here, Lord, I give myself away,
'Tis all that I can do.
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