Skip to main content

Seven Last Words--Thirst


Seven Last Words
“I thirst.”
The end is coming quickly now. His body has been beaten, desecrated, and now is quickly becoming dehydrated. His tongue sticks to the roof of his mouth they are so dry. If there was anything to swallow, it would be almost impossible to do so. Jesus’ humanity is coming to the end of life, a life that seemingly has been pulled from it; beaten from it.

These words have meant many things to many people through history. Surely, Jesus suffers from physical thirst. How could he not? And so these words are our second verbal indicator of his human suffering and approaching death.  It is a bit ironic that he who suggested that the Spirit would be a living fountain of water in him who believed would now feel bereft of water. Ironic perhaps, but a clear indicator of what Jesus has given up so that we might live.

Jesus has been on a mission directed by God. He probably also thirsts—longs for the completion of this mission. Following on the heels of his cry of being forsaken, this simple statement has less energy, less demand of God.  He is ready to die for the Father. He is ready to die for you.

He thirsts also for you. As the representative of humankind, Jesus embodies the state of us all—thirsting after God.  In these words, Jesus tells us that God thirsts for hearts to be formed in us which thirst for him. He thirsts that the world might be set right and humans might take their rightful place with God.

Through his thirst, he offers the Spirit to slake our thirst—our longing for a world and a life with more certainty, less hurt, and clearer ends.
Reflection
Water—without it we would die in just a handful of days. It is critical for life. Scripture pictures water as just that—life giving grace. Jesus told the woman at the well that he could give her living water so that she would never thirst. Or again, that those who have the Spirit have within them a living, vibrant, life giving stream or fountain that is unquenchable. God wants us to have that Spirit and to live thirsting for him.
Have you ever been so thirsty that your tongue literally stuck to the roof of your mouth? Have you ever hungered after God to such a degree that your soul seemed to be parched? Describe that here:

If you have felt that way, what have you done to quench that thirst? How do you keep it from returning?

Do you have friends who seem to be living lives of thirst? How are some ways you might give them some spiritual water?

What do you need to do?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

He Remembers We Are But Flesh

In Job, often considered the first book written in the Bible, we are introduced to the accuser. In the introduction to the book, it is the accuser who accuses Job of being righteous and faithful to God only because of the blessings that God has given Job. We find the accuser again in Zechariah 3. The High Priest Joshua is standing in front of the Lord in filthy clothes, and the accuser is making accusations. The Lord rebukes the accuser and then says that he will cleanse Joshua.  Then in the New Testament, we see the appearance of the Advocate. The Spirit, we are told, is sent to walk beside us, to be a witness, to be an advocate for us. The accuser challenges us, questions our faithfulness, and questions our integrity as people who are supposed to follow God as His people, His disciples. This is an entre for being blamed and shamed. But God comes alongside us and advocates for us. We are told too that Jesus is our mediator with God. Jesus defends us and explains us to God so that ...
Post a Comment
Read more

Elders redux

A reader (I am always amazed that people actually read this blog) submitted a rather long comment on the original post on Elders. It is apparent that the reader did some good homework as the comment has several, well, more than several, reference citations. It is clear that they both read the original post and did some Bible study before posting their comment. Because the comment was so long, I thought it appropriate to post another entry rather than bury the response in the comment log. In the following discussion, I have included the text of the comment without the Scripture references. If you want to read the comment in its entirety, scroll to the Elders post and click on the comment. --------------------------------------------------------- [Comment~~~~The church is expected to be a people in exactly this sense. We are the people of God who are charged with continuing and preserving the values, culture, hopes, and the identity of God’s people in our time.~~~~ Does this include th...
7 comments
Read more

Remember You Were Slaves

In his essay "Mishpatim: Healing the Heart of Darkness*," Jonathan Sacks makes the argument that tribalism can, and usually does, give rise to acceptance, compassion, and social bonding but also to fear, hate, and demeaning others. Those in our group give and receive the former from us, those outside our group receive and often give the latter. We humans have the capacity of empathy toward those like us but we also, being finite beings, suffer from fear and that fear too often translates to hate of those not like us.  Sacks then reminds us that Israel was told not to hate the outsider, the one who isn't in our group. He quotes two passages from Exodus: "You must not mistreat or oppress the stranger in any way. Remember, you yourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt." (22.21) "You must not oppress strangers. You know what it feels like to be a stranger, for you yourselves were once strangers in the land of Egypt." (23.9) Sacks then...
Post a Comment
Read more