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Christ Church Uniting
Disciples and Presbyterians
1300 Kailua Rd.
Kailua, HI 96734
262-6911
Good Friday 2002
Grace to you and peace from God our Creator and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen?
O Loving God: we
seek Good News in Jesus’ words from the Cross, and particularly in this moment
from his words: I thirst.
Here’s the quote: “When Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), "I am thirsty." [John 19:28]
Did Jesus really did say these words?
Maybe he did. Maybe he didn’t.
If he did say them, it would fit the scene.
He could have been parched.
On the other hand, perhaps no one actually heard what Jesus said as he bled out under a blazing sun.
In another part of John’s Gospel, didn’t Jesus
say something like “[After I am
gone] Holy Spirit…will teach you everything, and remind you of all that I have
said to you.” [John 14:26]
I’m seeing John imaginatively explore Jesus’ crucifixion. I see the Old Testament open on the table. I see the Holy Spirit beside John.
I’m thinking, maybe nobody actually heard what
Jesus said on the cross. Perhaps
the Holy Spirit gave John a creative nudge whispering, “write it like this.”
Regardless, we want to ask, what is the meaning of these
words “I thirst”? And beyond
that, what is the Good News here anyway?
There is the obvious detail: dehydration, delirium. In itself, however, it’s not gospel that Jesus was dehydrated. It’s not Good News that he was perhaps, as any of us might have been in the moment—delirious. What is the Good News in these words?
Searching. In the Book of Revelation, St. John’s Apocalypse, I find these words “They [meaning: those who keep the faith] will hunger no more, and thirst no more; the sun will not strike them, nor any scorching heat…" [Revelation 1:7:16-17]
Do you get the irony? God’s Promise to those who kept the faith under persecution apparently did not apply to Jesus. It did not keep Jesus either from suffering thirst or from baking in the scorching heat. Interesting. Gets me thinking. But it’s still not Good News.
Searching. In St. Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled.” [Matthew 5:6] What do you think? Here, thirst might be a metaphor for “yearning.”
But it’s not just any “yearning.” It’s not about a “heart’s desire” to be famous, or rich, or invisible. It’s a thirst, a yearning, for righteousness.
Footnote: Biblical “righteousness” is a communal rather than an individual thing. Righteousness is a corporate rather than a private reality. It’s about right relationships in community. It’s about fair and just dealings among people. In Bible think, experience of righteousness is the experience of God’s Presence. It is God’s ordering, healing, reconciling Presence in community.
So, here is Jesus: alienated, betrayed, abandoned, and about to die on a cross. He says “I thirst.”
I can imagine he is expressing a yearning for God’s Presence. Unjustly condemned, perjured against, he thirsts for a relational, righteous, and community experience of God.
In St. John’s Gospel, to the Samaritan woman at the well, Jesus says, "Everyone who drinks of this [well] water will be thirsty again, but those who drink of the [Living] Water that I will give them will never be thirsty.” [John 4: 13-14]
Jesus seems to be saying that there is a thirst
(perhaps the one we’ve already encountered, the thirst for righteousness)
which he is able to quench.
Here’s what I have so far--
Thirst may be thought of as a metaphor for a
longing,
a longing for God experience in community right
relatedness,
a thirst that can only be slaked by the Living Water
which Jesus gives.
Nothing else will satisfy.
I’m now ready to suggest Good News from Jesus’ words: I thirst.
First: The one who thirsts was one Of us.
From the depths of alienation, as one Of us, Jesus experienced the human longing for Divine Connection through right relationships in community. Jesus experienced our yearning. Jesus knows us. Jesus is One with Us. Jesus said, “I thirst.” This is Good News.
And those who have found Jesus to be Living Water, to be the one in whom and through whom righteousness, justice and fair dealing in community has been found will be able to affirm the second point of Good News, namely that
Jesus, the one who thirsts, is not only one of us, but as the source of Living Water is one who is For us as well. Jesus, who thirsts, is For us.
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Good Friday Blessings!
Preached at St. Christopher’s Episcopal Church
for the Windward Coalition of Churches Good Friday Service
by Rev. Fabian M. “Buddy” Summers,
Pastor of Christ Church Uniting Disciples and Presbyterians, Kailua, HI