One of the things that used to bother me growing up reading God's Word was the part where Jesus was on the Cross and asked for a drink. A Roman soldier lifted up a sponge on a reed with a liquid that was described as "vinegar and water". While vinegar was sometimes used as a balm that drink sounded disgusting and I always questioned it. That passage is mistranslated. What the Roman soldier gave Jesus was part of his ration of Posca, Roman vinegar sour wine that they carried with them: What is a container of wine vinegar doing on Golgotha that day? It is posca, a drink popular with soldiers of the Roman army, made by diluting sour wine vinegar with water. It was inexpensive, considered more thirst quenching than water alone, prevented scurvy, killed harmful bacteria in the water, and the vinegary taste made bad smelling water more palatable. All over the empire, posca was the soldier's drink of choice. The soldiers had brought posca to sustain them during their crucifixion duty. They weren't getting drunk on it, just using it to quench their own thirst. The sponge provides even more proof b/c the Romans used it a both helmet liner and for drinking: While a condemned criminal might be able to drink wine prior to being crucified, drinking from a cup while hanging on the cross wasn't practical. So when Jesus indicated his thirst, the soldiers used a sponge to give him posca to slake his thirst: what was a sponge (Greek sponges) doing on Golgotha that day? It seems scarcely the thing you'd expect to find. Again, sponges were part of a Roman soldier's kit. Sponges were found along the Mediterranean coast, were widely used in ancient times to line and pad a soldier's helmet. Soldiers also used sponges as drinking vessels. No doubt one of the soldiers offered Jesus a drink of posca from his own supply, using his own sponge. A soldier wasn't required to share his drink with the criminals under his care. But he had seen that Jesus was dying unlike any other criminal he had ever seen. No cursing, no blaming, no anger. As for the reed: John makes a point of specifying the hyssop plant, a small bush with blue flowers and highly aromatic leaves, whereas the Synoptic Gospels refer to it as "stick" (NIV, NRSV) or "reed" (KJV, RSV). What is the significance of hyssop? Hyssop was used to sprinkle blood on the doorposts and lintels on the first Passover (Exodus 12:22). It was associated with purification and sacrifices in the tabernacle (Leviticus 14:4, 6; Numbers 19:6, 18). No doubt John had this in mind when he wrote his Gospel. Since Jesus was dehydrated and weak with loss of blood and his throat was parched, without the Posca he could not have said "It is finished." The Roman soldier facilitated that by sharing his ration from his kit. FYI...

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