in which He received it. He was willing to accept it to revive
His strength to suffer, when "He would not drink" the "wine mingled with
gall" that would relieve Him from the pain He was willing to endure. The
end was drawing near. The thirst had long continued. He had borne it
patiently for five long hours. Why did He at last utter the cry, "I
thirst"? John gives the reason. A prophecy was being fulfilled, and
Jesus would have it known. It was this: "In My thirst they gave Me
vinegar to drink." So "Jesus, ... that the Scripture might be fulfilled,
saith, 'I thirst.'"

John watched Him as He took His last earthly draught. It was probably of
the sour wine for the use of the soldiers on guard. What varied
associations he had with wine,--the joyful festivities of Cana, the
solemnities of the Upper Room, and the sadness of Calvary.

When Jesus therefore had received the vinegar, He said, "It is
finished." This is the third of the sayings of Jesus on the cross
preserved by John, who was a special witness to the chief doings of his
Lord on the earth. So the declaration meant more to him than to any
other who heard it. Yet it had a fulness of meaning which even he could
not fully know. Jesus' life on earth was finished. He had perfectly
obeyed the commandments of God. The types and prophecies concerning Him
had been fulfilled. His revelation of truth was completed. The work of
man's redemption was done. On the cross He affirmed what John said He
declared in the Upper Room to His Father: "I have glorified Thee on the
earth, having accomplished the work Thou hast given Me to do."

All four Evangelists tell of the moment when Jesus yielded up His life,
but John alone of the act that accompanied it as the signal thereof,
which his observant eye beheld. "He bowed His head,"--not as the
helpless victim of the executioner's knife upon the fatal block, but as
the Lord of Life who had said, "No one taketh it away from Me, but I lay
it down of Myself."

John makes mention of another incident without which the story of the
crucifixion would be incomplete. Mary Magdalene and other loving women
had left the cross, but were gazing toward it as they "stood afar off."
John remained with the soldiers who were watching the bodies of the
crucified. "The Jews, ... that the bodies should not remain upon the
cross upon the Sabbath, asked of Pilate that their legs might be
broken"--to hasten death--"and that they might be taken away." As John
saw