A Meditation for Maundy Thursday
Offered to United Church of Chapel Hill by Katherine Henderson
April 18, 2019
Scripture: John 19:28-30 After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfill the scripture), “I am thirsty.” A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth.
Jesus’ body is failing. He is severely dehydrated. The soldiers momentarily ease his discomfort with some of their vinegary wine drink. But they do not, they cannot, quench his thirst.
Jesus is dying a violent death, his life ebbing away in a physical body. His thirst is a visceral reminder of his humanity and our shared bodily life. Jesus came to BE a body with us, and to transform our relationship with each other’s bodies. He touched and ate with people who were considered unclean. He washed dirty, dusty feet with his hands. He healed with fish and bread and wine, with spit and tears.
“I thirst” is a cry of physical pain, the thirst of the dying. It is also a cry of spiritual and existential pain. The Gospel of John identifies Jesus as the source of living water. In John chapter 4, Jesus says to the woman at the well: “but those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.”
But now, in a world-shattering, horribly ironic twist, the source of living water is drying up. The very source of hope, grace, mercy and radical love is… dying.
It would be natural—understandable even—to despair, to run away from this scene. But several of Jesus’ closest companions are there at the cross. They don’t have the power to quench his physical thirst, or to save him from death. But they do have the power to witness. To stay. To walk toward the suffering, like Jesus taught them to do. They practice discipleship by staying as close to Jesus’ life as possible, even in his final moments. Their witness is costly; their presence, an offering.
Jesus came to transform us to be worthy members of God’s kin-dom. Even his moment of profound thirst, when living water itself is running dry, holds the potential for personal and collective transformation.
So we retell the story, remembering how he lived and died a bodily life, quenching thirst wherever he went. We retell the story, praying that we might have the courage to walk toward the suffering in our midst. We retell the story, hoping that in the face of profound thirst, we might expand in empathy rather than contract in fear.
I am thirsty, Jesus says. Let us bear witness and be transformed. Amen.
