Welcome to breakpoint, a daily look, and an ever-changing culture through the lens of unchanging truth.

For the Colson Center, I'm John Stone Street.

I thirst. Only John's Gospel records these words. They were uttered by Jesus, were told, not as a guttural physical response, but with intention.

Knowing that all was now finished, Jesus said, I thirst in order to fulfill the scriptures.

And yet, we ought not think these words are manufactured

or insincere either.

You see, earlier in his ministry,

Jesus had, on the last great day of the feast of tabernacles,

stood up and cried out, if anyone thirst,

let him come to me and drink.

Whoever believes in me, as the scripture has said,

out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.

The water that I will give him will become in him

a spring of water welling up to eternal life.

And now, on the cross, he who said these words was himself thirsty.

Now, why are we told this?

Why is the fact that Jesus thirsted important?

Well, the world changed on All Saints Day in 1755. In Lisbon, Portugal, a 10-minute earthquake

followed by a tsunami and fires killed an estimated 60,000 people, many crushed by collapsing

churches where they had gathered to celebrate that Christian Holy Day.

According to moral philosopher Susan Neiman, for many Western intellectuals,

this incident of natural evil proved that God could no longer be trusted.

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