Thirsty
by Fr. Mark-David Janus, C.S.P.
March 30, 2018

At the deathbeds of those I love 
I learned how much thirst is part of death. 
When you are dying you are not thirsty like we get thirsty 
for a coke, or lemonade or cold beer on a hot day,
When you are dying you thirst frantically.
Swabbing desperate lips 
with bits of ice or swabs dipped in water 
is the last service we can offer those we love
the only way to calm their frenetic search for moisture.

The thirst Jesus complains of on the cross is real. 
He has had no sleep. No food or drink. He has been whipped. 
He carried his own cross and has been nailed to it. 
He has lost blood. 
The sweat from his body carries away 
the little water he had left. 
So when John’s gospel records that Jesus said: 
I thirst, 
it was not poetry, it was reality. 
It was the reality of his pain: 
the pain of dehydration, 
and the pain he felt because 
he was rejected, despised, hurt 
by the very people he thirsted for.

He was the reckless shepherd 
who left ninety nine behind 
to go look of the one lost sheep. 
He was the father who would run to the prodigal son. 
He ate and drank in the houses of people known to be sinners. 
He crossed borders to make foreigners like the Samaritans, 
the heroes of his stories. 
He forgave the woman caught in the act of adultery 
because he did not want that sin to keep her from God.

Jesus was thirsty his entire life, longing, wanting, yearning 
for us to know the love of God. 
“I have come that you might have joy 
and that your joy might be complete” those were his words. 
He had an endless thirst 
for the love that would bring us happiness.

On the cross Jesus was thirsty for the love of Judas and Peter, 
thirsty for the love of Pilate and Herod. 
His human heart revealed God’s thirst for you and for me.
The gospel tells us that the soldiers gave him a sour drink of wine 
to deaden his pain. 
But that is not what he was thirsty for. 
He was thirsty for us.

Do you know suffering? 
So did he.
Have you felt abandoned?
So did he?
Have you been humiliated, despised, insulted?
So was he.
Have you been misunderstood, vilified?
So was he.
Why- because in his thirst for us he chooses 
To experience all those parts of life
That convince us we are worthless and alone.
He hangs on the cross
So that when we look upon on it we will see his love for us
In our most desperate arid places.
And seeing that, this time, 
Our thirst will be quenched.

We thirst for love, both to love and be loved.
We thirst for joy 
and something permanent and trustworthy to believe in.
We thirst to mean something to someone.
We thirst for understanding for our faults
and forgiveness for our sins.
We thirst that we may not be alone in this life.
What we thirst for we find in Jesus on the cross:
Love, God’s love thirsting still – 
Thirsting for that sweet cooling drink:
Our gift of love to quench the thirst of him who loved us first.

Looking upon the cross, St. Alphonsus Ligouri wrote this prayer, as we look upon the cross today, may we make it our own:

O Jesus, it is not the heavenly reward you have promised 
which impels me to love you; 
neither is it the threat of hell that keeps me from offending you. 
It is you, O Lord, 
it is the sight of you affixed to the Cross and suffering insults;
it is the sight of your broken body, 
as well as your pains and your death. 
There is nothing you can give me to make me love you. 
For even if there were no heaven and no hell, 
I would still love you as I do. Amen.

Paulist Fr. Mark-David Janus is president of Paulist Press.