Ten Minute Bible Talks Devotional Bible Study - Behold the Lamb | The Gospels | John 19:28-37

Episode Date: August 26, 2026

Have you heard the story of Jesus’s death so many times that it feels familiar? What if the details we’ve heard before are actually invitations to wonder? What do we see when we look closely at the cross? In today’s episode, Jensen explores John 19:28–37 and reveals how Jesus fulfills Scripture as the promised Passover Lamb who willingly gives his life for the world. Read the Bible with us! This year, we’re exploring the Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John—and it's never too late to join! Download your reading plan now. Your support makes TMBT possible. Ten Minute Bible Talks is a crowd-funded project. Join the TMBTeam to reach more people with the Bible. Give now. Like this content? Make sure to leave us a rating and share it so that others can find it, too. Use #asktmbt to connect with us, ask questions, and suggest topics. We'd love to hear from you! To learn more, visit our website and follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter @TenMinuteBibleTalks. Don't forget to subscribe to the TMBT Newsletter here. Passage: John 19:28-37

Welcome to 10-minute Bible Talks, where we connect the Bible to your life and the time it takes to get to work. I'm Jensen Holt McNair. So last night I was sitting at the dinner table with my kids, and I opened a can of Diet Coke to pour into a cup of ice. And my oldest son, he asked if he could pour it for me. So I let him and his sister share the task of slowly pouring soda into my cup. Now, this is a task that I do often. Diet Coke is my guilty pleasure. I probably have a problem. I don't need judgment. Let me live my life. And it is just like so true that a can of Diet Coke is always better over ice. No question.

So I often experience what happens when you pour a soda into a cup. It fizzes up, you wait a second, you pour more. mundane. Second nature at this point. Nothing crazy. Just pouring myself a crisp Diet Coke. But my kids, you think I'd just. given them like a brand new toy. They were locked in, examining the bubbles, getting nice and close, noticing the way the fizzing sounded, how it smelled. Each time they poured, they were discovering some new incredible insight about what happens when you pour a Diet Coke. And honestly, I was hooked too. It was fun. We were discovering and unpacking so many things that just go unnoticed by me every day as I pour my Diet Coke.

Like their fresh eyes and curiosity and wonder as they learn and experience new things, it was contagious. And I thought about how I miss an opportunity to experience that kind of wonder every day. How much do I miss out on beholding just because things have become mundane, normal, and familiar to me? Missing out on the wonder of pouring a Diet Coke isn't going to drastically change. changed my life for the worse, probably. But what if I'm doing the same thing in the bigger things? What if my familiarity with certain passages of the Bible, certain stories, certain truths

keep me from digging in and uncovering just the richness of Scripture? Keep me from marveling and wonder at all that we find in Scripture. Now, if you've been a Christian for a prolonged period of time, my guess is that you know what Jesus's crucifixion looked like. You probably know even if you haven't. You could give me some highlights of the events that happened. There's a chance that when you opened your Bible today and read John 19, 28 to 37, none of it was new to you. You read it quickly, feeling familiar with the story, knowing in advanced what Jesus' last words would be, reading in autopilot, knowing the plot. I did too. When I read the passage, my first thought was, man, I don't know exactly what to talk about. Like, what can I say

that hasn't been said before that people don't already know? So I read a few commentaries on the passage and I started digging. And I got excited as I connected more and more dots and uncovered what I had glossed over in my familiarity. Now, this isn't probably new, but it's just not something that I think about all the time. So today, I just want to slow down. I want us to be like my kids, taking something familiar and inspecting it, marvelling at it, allowing ourselves to be floored in wonder by all that we discover if we just lean in. So let's begin by reading the passage in full. After this, after the first events of the crucifixion, Jesus is on the cross, he's nailed there, his clothing has been stripped and divided, his body beaten, and after this, Jesus, knowing that all

was now finished, said to fulfill the scripture, I thirst. A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the sour wine, he said, it is finished, and he bowed his head and gave up his spirit. Since it was the day of preparation and so that the bodies would not remain on the cross on the Sabbath, for that Sabbath was a high day, the Jews asked Pilate that their legs might be broken and that they may be taken away. So the soldiers came and broke the legs of the first and of the other who had been crucified with him. But when they came to Jesus and saw that he was already dead, they did not break his legs. But one of the soldiers pierced his side with a spear,

and at once there came out blood and water. He who saw it has borne witness. His testimony is true, and he knows that he is telling the truth that you may also believe. For these things took place. that the scripture might be fulfilled. Not one of his bones will be broken. And again, another scripture says they will look on him whom they have pierced. Okay, so first, let's notice if John repeats any ideas or themes in this passage. Now, I saw a few different times in this passage that John speaks about scripture being fulfilled. To fulfill the scripture, these things took place so that the scripture might be fulfilled. Again, another scripture says. So John, he's a little, to other places in scripture that he is telling us point to this moment in Jesus's life.

So we're just going to unpack some of these moments, the first being when Jesus says I thirst. Now, many scholars believe that this points back to Psalm 69 when David writes, they gave me poison for food, and for my thirst, they gave me sour wine to drink. So Jesus, in his reference to this passage, he reminds us that he is the promised Messiah, the son of David. Yes, Jesus is being killed by the Romans on the cross, but John is reminding us that there is more at play than a normal criminal's death. Jesus is the Messiah, which makes us ask the question, if he's the Messiah, the one to sit on the throne to rule and reign for all of eternity, then why in the world is he dying? Well, in verse 30, we read that once he takes the sour

wine. Like the psalms said he would, he says it is finished. And then he bowed his head and he gave up his spirit. See, what John is telling us here is that Jesus's life is not being taken from him. The enemy is not triumphing over Jesus here. The Romans are not squashing a criminal. Jesus is giving up his life. Now Isaiah 5312 falls in the middle of a prophetic passage about a suffering servant who would come and suffer for the sake of the people. And in verse 12, it says that this servant poured out his life unto death, and he was numbered with transgressors. He gave up his life. It was voluntary. Isaiah continues, for he bore the sin of many and made intercession for the transgressors. See, when Jesus says it is finished, he both means that his death is eminent, but he also means

the work that God sent him to do, to proclaim and establish his kingdom is finished. Jesus had been faithful. He has done the last thing he had to do. He gave up his life willingly for the sake of others. This passage in Isaiah, it helps us see this. It adds richness to Jesus' words. But John isn't done yet. He tells us next that the Jews want this crucifixion done so that they can get the bodies down and buried before the Sabbath, a time that was holy and they couldn't handle the dead bodies. And this isn't just any Sabbath. It tells us it's a high Sabbath, the Sabbath of the Passover feast. Now, it was custom to break the legs of those on the cross so that they would die quickly. And they do this to the two on either side of Jesus. But remember, when they get to Jesus,

they find that he's already dead. Verse 36 tells us this happened so that it could fulfill the scripture. Not one of his bones will be broken. Now, scholars agree that there could be two different passages that this might point to, both have to do with the celebration of Passover and the sacrificial lamb. Numbers 912 says, they must not leave any of it until morning or break any of its bones. When they celebrate the Passover, they must follow all the regulations. And Exodus 1246 states, it shall be eaten in one house. You shall not take any of the flesh outside the house and you shall not break any of its bones. Okay, so these are very very, specific instructions for the Israelites as they celebrate Passover to kill and eat the Passover lamb,

but to be sure that they do not break any bones. The Jewish people, they celebrated the Passover each year. It was a time to remember when God delivered them out of slavery, when he protected them from the final plague, the death of the firstborn. The Israelites were to sacrifice a lamb and put its blood over the doorpost of their home, and in doing so, the angel of death, the one who passed judgment, would pass over their home. And what is interesting is that they were commanded in Exodus 1222 to take a bunch of hyssop and to use it to spread the blood on the doorpost. Now John, he specifically mentions that the soldiers used a hyssop branch to offer Jesus the sour wine. And I don't think it's coincidence. I think that John is clearly painting us the picture. John is making the connection

for us. Jesus is the sacrificial Passover lamb. In 1 Corinthians 5, we read, for Christ, our Passover lamb has been sacrificed. In 1 Peter 1, we read, for you know that it was not with perishable things such as silver or gold that you were redeemed from the empty way of life handed down to you from your ancestors, but with the precious blood of Christ, a lamb without blemish or defect. So as the blood of Jesus poured from his side, we are given the image of a sacrificial lamb, holy, blameless, without blemish or defect, killed for the sins of another. But unlike the lambs of Passover, given year after year, this sacrificial lamb was given for all people at one time. His life was not taken unknowingly from him. No, Jesus gave it willingly in obedience to the will of the

Father, that we might be redeemed from the empty way of life that we were slaves to and delivered into new and abundant life. And this shouldn't be a shock to us as we read this passage because all the way back, all the way back in John 1 as Jesus approached John the Baptist to be baptized, what did John say to him? He said, behold, the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Behold. By definition, to behold something is to perceive through sight or apprehension, to gaze upon, to look closely with wonder. I hope that this is what we have done today and will continue doing to behold the wonder that our creator so desperately moved by his love for us, his desire to dwell with us, to be reconciled to us, that he took on humanity, that he suffered a gruesome death, that he became the sacrifice,

the sacrificial lamb that we needed to bring reconciliation and redemption to all of creation for all time. What a joy it is to sit and stare and wonder at the richness and depth of scripture as it points us to the one our soul longs for. So let's do what John implores us to do in his gospel. Behold the sacrificial lamb. Behold the one who took away your sin. Behold Jesus today.