“They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me sour wine to drink” (Psalm 69:21 ESV).
David described the cruelty of his enemies in vivid terms. When he longed for comfort, they gave him bitterness instead. When he thirsted, they offered sour wine. His suffering was real, but his words were metaphorical.
Yet what David described with metaphor, Jesus suffered in fact. At the cross, Jesus entered this suffering literally. Matthew recorded that He was offered wine mixed with bitter gall, and John wrote that after Jesus said, “I thirst,” He was given sour wine. The righteous sufferer of Psalm 69 found his ultimate fulfillment in Christ.
The One who gives living water was Himself allowed to thirst. The One who offers the cup of salvation willingly drank the bitter cup the Father gave Him, saying, “Shall I not drink the cup that the Father has given me?” (John 18:11). In Gethsemane He had already prayed, “My Father, if this cannot pass unless I drink it, your will be done” (Matt. 26:42). Jesus willingly submitted to the Father’s will and bore our sin and judgment upon the cross.
Psalm 69 therefore stands alongside Psalm 22 and Isaiah 53 as one of Scripture’s great portraits of the suffering Messiah. Jesus did not merely sympathize with human suffering from a distance. He entered it fully.
When we suffer, we can remember that we do not pray to a Savior who is unfamiliar with pain. “We do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses” (Heb. 4:15). But the cross was not the end of His story. On the third day, our suffering Savior rose from the grave and conquered death. Because He lives, those who are in Him have the certain hope that our suffering, sorrow, and even death will not have the final word. The risen Christ will return, raise His people, and make all things new.
PRAYER: Dear Father, thank You for sending Jesus, our suffering Savior. Help us to trust Him in our pain, knowing that He willingly drank the cup You gave Him, rose victorious from the grave, and will one day raise us to everlasting life with Him. In Jesus’ name, amen.