Thirst - March 25, 2016 (Meditation 2)

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John 19:28-29

Jesus had thirsted before. Early on in his ministry he had stayed by a well in Samaria while the disciples had gone into town to buy lunch. The noonday sun was hot and Jesus was thirsty but he had no bucket with which to draw water.
Unlike Jesus that day, unlike people in developing nations who every day walk miles to get water, unlike people in Flint, Michigan, whose tap water has been tainted with lead, when I get thirsty I simply reach for the glass of water that sits on my desk. Sure, I've known thirst; hiking a dusty trail on a hot day, the middle of the night cotton mouth, my desire for a long drink after a rich meal. Yes, I've been thirsty, and it's always been easy enough to satisfy.
Jesus was thirsty enough that day by the well to cross all sorts of social barriers when a woman

showed up to get water. Men did not speak to women to whom they were not related, Jews did not talk to Samaritans, her presence at the well in the heat of noon indicated she was an outcast – oh yes, he broke all the rules when he asked, "Give me a drink."
In asking Jesus primed the pump for an in depth theological discussion about living water and the meaning of worship. It took a little while for the woman to go beyond the literal level of "where's your bucket?" to "He cannot be the Messiah, can he?" but she got there. And it all started with Jesus' thirst.
Years later, on the cross, Jesus again said, "I am thirsty." The Gospel of John tells this story a bit differently from the other Gospels. In Matthew and Mark, sour wine is offered to Jesus before the actual crucifixion. In those Gospels the wine is mixed with gall or myrrh which served as a mild narcotic to ease the torture of the crucifixion, a tiny shred of mercy in an otherwise cruel process. In Luke the sour wine is offered after Jesus is on the cross and as a part of the soldier's mockery. In each of those cases, Jesus refuses the wine.
In John, however, Jesus says, "I am thirsty." As at the Samaritan well, tradition has it that Jesus was crucified at noon. With the sun pouring down, it would have been hot. That morning he had already been through a trial before Pilate, flogged, and then carried the cross to the hill of Golgotha. No wonder he was thirsty.
John tells us his request fulfilled the Scripture. Psalm 69 says, "They gave me poison for food, and for my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink." It was the final step in the process that had led up to this moment. And so the sip of vinegar he sucked from the spongy hyssop prepared the way for Jesus to cross a final boundary. As we'll hear with the final two words from the cross, Jesus died. He crossed from this life to the next.
I am thirsty. Yes, we say those words too. I'm thirsty. Tonight may we thirst for righteousness, for the living water of which Jesus had told the Samaritan woman. May our thirst move us beyond the needs of our bodies to the needs of our souls. May our thirst spur us to cross from the desires of this world to a longing for God.
May we thirst.