I thirst. (John 19:28)
The Word of Suffering
Jesus you thirst to give me your love and for my love in return. Lord Jesus, let me enter more deeply into your love. Let me understand that I cannot give without receiving nor receive without giving. Quench my thirst for your love, O Lord, by sending me those who need to be loved and give me a resurrection love that I may love them as you do.
Scripture
Jesus stood up and exclaimed, "Let anyone who thirsts come to me and drink. Whoever believes in me, as scripture says, ‘Rivers of living water will flow from within them’" (John 7:37-38).
Reflection
Thirst is a very fundamental experience. I have only been thirsty once, walking in the desert from Jerusalem to Jericho. After a while we began to feel disorientated, almost disembodied. One of our companions did go slightly crazy with thirst but for those who face suffering it is often the climax of their trials.
Brian Keenan, in his hell hole in Beirut, longs for words and for water: "I must ration my drinking water for I am always fearful that I might finish it and then wake in the middle of the night with a raging thirst that I cannot satiate. I think of rabies and the raging thirst of mad dogs and I know how easy it would be to go mad from thirst. Now I know the full meaning of the expression so frequently used in our daily lives: ‘He was mad with thirst.’" (An Evil Cradling, p. 63).
Why it is that thirst for water is so fundamental? Maybe it is because our bodies are 98 per cent water. Dehydration is the seeping away of our very being, our substance. We feel that we ourselves are evaporating. So often the last desire of those who are dying is for something to drink. It also stands for that deepest thirst for the one who gives us substance and being at every moment and who promises eternal life: "Oh God, you are my God for you I long; for you my soul is thirsting. My body pines for you, like a dry weary land without water." (Psalm 62)
