I thirst

After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.' (John 19:28)

Likewise also the chief priests mocking him, with the scribes and elders, said, "He saved others, Himself He cannot save. If He be the King of Israel, let Him now come down from the cross, and we will believe Him. He trusted in God; let Him deliver Him now, if He will have Him: for He said, 'I am the Son of God.'" (Matthew 27:41-43)

But whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall be in him a well of water springing up into everlasting life. (John 4:14)

As the hart panteth after the water brooks,
So panteth my soul after Thee, O God.
My soul thirsteth for God, for the living God.
When shall I come and appear before God?
My tears have been my meat day and night,
While they continually say unto me,
"Where is thy God?"

(Psalm 42:1-3)

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Living in Singapore as we do, the experience of real thirst is probably fairly alien to most of us. Among the many things we take for granted in this country, one of them is surely the clean water that flows so freely from our taps. (That most of this water is in fact bought from our good neighbour up north at the cost of quite some moolah and much high-level diplomacy, is something that most of us don't want to think about too much). Consequently, our understanding of one of the most powerful symbols in scripture is also necessarily limited by our lack of experience. Even when we do get thirsty, we're usually quite certain that water is within easy reach - and so feel none of the desperation that accompanies the kind of thirst that doesn't know when, or if, it will ever be quenched.

So if we're lucky, most of us will never feel the ravaging thirst that Jesus felt on the cross, the kind that leaves your tongue clinging to the roof of your mouth (Psalm 22:15) and your throat so hoarse that your voice is reduced to a mere rasp in the wind. None of us, I dare say, will ever have to feel such thirst while also hanging on an ancient Roman torture instrument, breathing our last with our bodies lacerated from scourging, nails driven through our wrists and feet, betrayed and/or abandoned by almost all our friends, giddy from hunger and blood loss -- a naked, bloody spectacle for jeering mobs of the great unwashed.

All of which, really, is more than enough for any human being, let alone one who also happens to be God incarnate. Yet, if the theologians are right, that was really the least of the sufferings Jesus went through on the cross. What happened to Jesus during the crucifixion went beyond physical pain - it was an existential blow that struck at the very core of His identity as the only-begotten Son of God, making Him who knew no sin become sin for us (2 Corinthians 5:21) and cutting Him off from the intimate communion with the Father that He had enjoyed since before the dawn of time.

This understanding of Jesus's experience on the cross gives new meaning to the words recorded as His penultimate utterance before His death: "I thirst," whispered our Lord, before finally gasping with his last breath, "It is finished." Of course, He was talking about physical thirst, but I think that to read this only at the literal level would be to miss out the real significance of what happened at Calvary. Separated from God, bearing the guilt and punishment for all the accumulated evil and corruption of the world, past, present and future, the Son of God thirsted for God. He felt the desperate yearning for love, goodness and wholeness that all human beings feel, whether we admit it or not. And He knew the hopelessness, the angst, that is the corollary of knowing, deep down, that there is nothing we can do to fill that longing - no human love, no human art, no human ingenuity can give us the rest that we seek, and we know that it is vain to try.

The miraculous cosmic irony in all of this, of course, is that the One who thirsted on the cross is also the One who calls Himself the living water (John 4:10), and who, by the power of the resurrection, invites all of us to come to that cleansing water and drink to the full. When we come to Him, we know that we stand before the One who is able to satisfy that ravaging thirst, but who can also empathise with us in our humanity and weakness because He has lived through the same thirst and impoverishment that is the human condition (Hebrews 4:15).

In all the seasons of our lives, we can turn to the comforting words of the prophet Isaiah:

Ho, everyone that thirsteth, come ye to the waters... (Isaiah 55:1)

We need not wander forever in the desert. We can stop and drink. Jesus has already done what needs to be done to make possible the quenching of our thirst. All we need to do, is to want to.
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