"I thirst" - Good Friday Reflection on John 19:28

{A reflection on one of the seven final words of Jesus as part of an Ecumenical Good Friday service}

{John 19:28} 

I thirst, says our Lord.

I thirst. 

The Gospel writer tells us that these words are uttered so that the Scripture would be fulfilled.  

The Gospel writer chooses not to tell us which Scripture, if there is one particular one, but we are assured that the Scripture is fulfilled with this very human utterance of Jesus - 

Evidence of His certain, physical, human suffering on the cross,

with a tongue thick and swollen from the beatings

and the heat

and the crucifixion itself

and one wonders that else He felt.  

Was it only thirst? 

Or did Jesus choose only to name that need?

Perhaps the pains He experienced were too numerous to begin to name,

and perhaps,

perhaps He knew that uttering these words would be the final fulfillment,

that the time had truly, at long last come for

His suffering at our hands to end.  

I thirst and the Scripture is fulfilled

and some mysterious Holy need is satisfied

but is the thirst of our Lord satisfied?

Does the sour wine lifted up on hyssop branches,

this motion of one of the nearby soldiers

dipping the branch into the sour wine

that would have been the color of blood and lifting it up –

does this remind the Jewish crowd of another moment in their history?  

Would they have caught their breaths,

seeing an image of their Passover?  

Would they have seen the soldier lifting up the dripping hyssop and thought of Moses’ instructions from Exodus:

take a bunch of hyssop,

dip it into the blood in the basin,

the blood of the perfect, unblemished, sacrificial Lamb,

and lift it high up onto the doorframe...

when the Lord goes through the land to strike down the Egyptians,

the Lord will see the blood on the top and sides of your doorframe and will pass over your household.

Would the Jewish crowd have seen this lifted,

dripping-with-red-hyssop and remembered when the Lord passed them over - they were, after all, gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate this very feast, this very Passover.  

What would it have felt like,

to be gathered for such a remembering of God’s faithfulness

and triumph for God’s people Israel

and to see this jolting image of that very faithfulness here, at this execution? 

For those who had no inclination that this Jesus was their long-awaited one, would they have delighted at this final act of mockery of the one crowned “king of the Jews”?

For those Jewish followers of Christ would tears have strewn down their faces as they wondered and feared at the injustice of it all and maybe,

maybe it might have sparked some...hope?  

Maybe remembering how bleak things were at the eve of that first Passover, and knowing how it all turned out with the unlikely but triumphant escape through the Red Sea - 

Maybe this, too, could turn out to be like that, though it seems so unlikely in this moment,

maybe there is a way through which God will triumph.  

Maybe there is hope.

Maybe there is hope as the Scriptures are fulfilled, satisfied

but still our question remains –

is the thirst of our Lord satisfied?

No drink could possibly cool his swollen tongue and

soothe his dry throat, could it?  

Could this be merely a human cry or maybe also a divine one?

As the drama of our Lord’s death plays out,

perhaps Jesus,

moments before He says it’s finished,

maybe what we have here is a declaration of the undone.  

My children, my beloved, my disciples, my friends,

I thirst - 

not for this sour wine but for all the things promised –

the same thirst we encountered at Jacob’s well with the good samaritan woman

who agreed Yes, Lord, I want that water that your promise,

the water that springs up like a well in my soul and satisfies something beyond physical thirst.  

Every other time this intentional Gospel writer talks about thirst it is to tell us this promise of our Lord: That if we just come to Jesus, we will thirst no longer. 

Why, then, is Jesus dying on the cross and suddenly He’s the one who is thirsty?

We are told the Scripture is satisfied but we are not told the same about Jesus’ thirst and I have to wonder if He’s telling us to stay thirsty.

To stay thirsty for the hope that is to come,

for the justice that will roll down like quenching streams,

for the righteousness that will overwhelm us like a flood.

If Jesus is thirsty maybe we should be thirsty, too,

not for whatever fake, sour, drink the Empire and its soldiers may offer us

but for something so far beyond what we can see or even imagine. 

In these days when the people of Flint, Michigan and Puerto Rico still thirst, still wonder when their clean drinking water will flow again... if we are not thirsty for justice, maybe we should be. 

In these days when our children are telling us they long for peace and safety in our schools and long, too, for a conversation about the ways to get to that safety that is so far above our current political discourse... if we are not thirsty for righteousness, maybe we should be.  

In these days when a young man of color, a young father of two, can be gunned down in his family’s backyard not so far from here simply for being there and being Black, shot down by servants of this American Empire, if we are not thirsty for justice and righteousness maybe we should be. 

Maybe when Jesus says I thirst, we should say: “I am thirsty, too”.  

We should say, I thirst, too, My Lord

and all I know with the coming of Easter is that you work in

powerful,
mysterious,

empire-defying ways - 

and every time a servant of this earthly empire lifts up the dripping hyssop

and performs something that looks an awful lot like the powerful promise you’ve invited us to - let me remember that our thirst is not satisfied with the sour wine of this world,

but instead by the Communion wine that binds us in forgiveness to You our Lord and to one another –

let me remember what your provision and protection is all about,

let me remember to thirst on for the things you lived about,

died for,

and promise us still.

I thirst.

We thirst.  We are thirsty, Lord.  

Come on then Lord Jesus.  

Come to us, return to us with that everlasting wellspring,

come on Lord Jesus and answer these prayers.  

We thirst.

Amen.