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Reflection on a Word of Jesus from the Cross “I thirst”. Good Friday 4/10/20. Alan Neale. Trinity Church, Newport, RI

St. John 19:28 “Jesus, aware that all had now come to its appointed end, said in fulfilment of Scripture, ‘I thirst.’”

On the Cross we hear Jesus in spiritual agony as he shouts “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”; now spiritual agony is exchanged for physical anguish and the climax of physical suffering. I thirst. The only word from the Cross referring to the physical suffering of Christ.

This word is a reminder to us of His human frailty. Our hearts, tossed about right now, are comforted as we remember that Jesus was truly human. Here is the secret of His Saviorhood, as Isaiah puts it, “In all their affliction so he was their Saviour.” Or as we have it in the Book Hebrews, “Ours is not a high priest unable to sympathize with our weaknesses…” I thirst. The terrible and tormenting thirst of a man who has lost so much blood. This is human frailty.

This word is also a reminder of His self-control. Only once during the excruciating agony of the Cross did a cry of pain escape his lips. Twelve legions of angels sitting on the parapet of heaven just awaiting the word of command – but no call for help. No word of complaint. No plea for sympathy. How easily we cry out and whine and become impatient at the slightest annoyance. How easily we become absorbed in our own miseries and how uncomfortable we sometimes make those closest to us.

In his suffering Jesus has left us an example that we should follow. Years ago a fellow priest, Ian Macpherson, told me this story. He was asked to visit an old man with the picturesque name of Jack Frost. He lived in a tiny Cornish village. The room in his cottage was neat and clean, though sparsely furnish and on a chair, in the middle to the room sat Jack Frost. Ian says, “I could have wept at the sight of him. Gravel blind, stone deaf, right arm amputated when upwards of 80 it was infected with gangrene. I shouted into his ear and for a while he talked to me in reminiscent mode as old men will. Then someone suggested that Jack should sing for me. Sing! I wondered what he could find to sing about – in his prison of darkness and silence, in his lonely prison of pain. Then my reverie was broken into by the sound of a thin, quavery voice. He was singing, Jack Frost was singing! And this is what he sang:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine;
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long.

Leaving the cottage I said to myself, “In all the thousands of learned works I have read presenting the case for Christianity, I have never found an argument so cogent or compelling as the song of old Jack Frost. A Christ who can cause a mam to sing in such circumstances is a Christ well worthy of the love and loyalty of the human heart.”

There was the royalty of inward happiness independent of circumstances, after the example of Jesus on the Cross.

I thirst. Perhaps above all, for me today, this is a reminder that Jesus was and is consumed with a spiritual longing greater than his physical thirst. How often we read of Jesus that He was moved with compassion for the crowds – his heart went out to them – for they were harassed and helpless, sheep without a shepherd. He thirsted for their wholeness and rescue. When Jesus met the woman at Scyhar’s well He not only thirsted for the water she could give him, but he was athirst for her salvation and gave her to drink of water that was an “inner spring always welling up for eternal life.”

Jesus is still athirst for our friendship and devotion, as he was athirst on the Cross. By our lives, our words, our prayers we can charter this life-giving stream to all people, those near and far who have a profound and inexpressible thirst. We can still hold the cup to His lips by going to those who are thirsty and need and serving them in the Name of the One who cried, “I thirst”.

A Prayer
Grant us, O Lord, so to thirst after You and with You we may be filled; and inspire us by Your grace to good works of compassion and love, so that we may gladden the heart of Him who in His people cry, “I thirst”. In the Name of Christ. Amen