I am thirsty. [Good Friday]

The Rev. Jeremiah Williamson

John’s Passion

I am thirsty.

Given the circumstances “I am thirsty” was not the most obvious statement to fall from Jesus’ dying lips, on that first Good Friday.  It seems much too small a thing.  One might think he would be preoccupied, instead, by the vast soteriological implications of his crucifixion, as many theologians have been throughout the ages.  This was, after all, an especially noteworthy moment in salvation, and human, history.  Thirst seems to be a rather mundane concern on such a cosmic stage.

Or perhaps he might be expected to be fixated on more pressing earthly concerns: distracted by the nails that tunneled through his wrists and through his ankles.  And the crowds with their disrespectful taunting.  And his friends with their fleeing.  And the death on either side. 

But as the air was strangled from his desperate lungs, it was the thirst, his parched tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth, that seemed to bother him.  Now maybe, I suppose, he was, as the Gospel of John tells us, just concerned to sufficiently fulfill all of the requisite biblical prophecies before taking his final breath, which was approaching with alarming urgency, but I wonder if, perhaps, it was something else.  I think this, this thirst, this terribly distracting death bed thirst, is just an absurd side effect of being human – one final human experience for this dying God.

This dying God, who feels in this moment, far, far too human.  It begins, of course, this humanity, with a Word made flesh.  And, in the beginning, it feels epic and romantic, cradled in the beautiful poetry at the beginning of John’s Gospel or in the simple manger of the Gospel according to Luke, all backlit by the heavenly host.  In infancy, at the beginning of this thrilling experiment, his nakedness was sweet and innocent, but now, at the end of the tragic story, it is shameful and embarrassing.  In infancy his thirst endearing, but now it feels like weakness, like desperation.

When we talk about Incarnation it is typically filling up womb and stable, and yet perhaps nothing feels so human as Incarnation filling the grooves in the wood with blood as red as yours and as red as mine.  And so, is there anything more human than a body requiring drink moments before death makes such a request so utterly irrelevant?

I visit people who are dying.  That is one of the things that I do.  I observe Good Friday throughout the year.  And every time it is so human.  What I see are weak arms fiddling with the oxygen tube as I pray lovely ancient prayers.  Or interrupting to ask me to grab that little wet sponge on a plastic stick and plunge it into a mouth that might as well be a desert.  I always hope, in those dying moments, for something profoundly spiritual, but I always get profoundly human.  And I am, I admit, still trying to figure out whether there is difference.  And it seems to me, on those Good Fridays, as if part of death’s existence is just to remind us that this is part of being human, that dying is the final reminder that we were really alive.

And God had to know that – which makes Good Friday all the more amazing.  God had to know that embodiment, incarnation, meant, not just death, but dying – with all of its devastatingly ugly beauty and desperate weakness.  With its pain and embarrassment.  With its longing and need.  With its hunger and thirst.

Given the circumstances “I am thirsty” was not the most obvious statement to fall from Jesus’ dying lips, on that first Good Friday.  I guess because it just feels like such a human thing to say.  Which, I suppose, for me, is the most difficult thing to accept about Jesus: he dies like us.  Fiddling with his oxygen tube, plunging a little wet sponge into his dry mouth.  It is the death of God and it is just so human.

Jesus says, “I am thirsty.”  But this close to death, with so little breath, the power of his voice, the same voice that once commanded the attention of the multitudes, must have been little more than a whisper.  And yet, it was still loud enough to catch the ear of a nearby soldier.  Who responded and obeyed as if hearing the voice of his master. 

That soldier reached up to plunge the little sponge into the dry mouth of a dying man.  All of Jesus’ disciples left, but this man, he stayed, fulfilling this death bed request, in that moment less soldier and more hospice nurse.  But he was there, this most unlikely comforter, attending to Jesus in the hour of his death. 

Maybe it was just his duty.  Or maybe he sensed that there was something more to that simple request, a deeper thirst animating this strained whisper.  The same thirst that could only be quenched in the flesh, by incarnation, by becoming mortal.  Not a thirst for drink, but for closeness.  Not a thirst for wine but a thirst for us.  “I am thirsty” was the whisper that drew the man in, that brought a person nearer to Jesus, that got him close – the very thing tha God had always wanted.  Because dying is hard, even for God, but dying alone is unbearable – especially for someone who is dying to be with us.