7LW: Thirst

JMJ
✙

This is the fifth in a series of posts on the Seven Last Words of Our Lord from the cross. I used this same text last year: but I was limited to a five-minute talk. This is the director’s cut, slightly up-dated because it’s a year later. There is a menu and a posting schedule at the bottom of this post. I’m late on this one. I had a term paper for Church History. Sorry!

I thirst.

MANY OF US as children have woken up at night and asked for a glass of water. Maybe as a parent our child wakes up and asks: Mommy, can I have a glass of water?

These words of our Lord, “I thirst” sound like that same cry.

We wake at night, in the dark, alone, afraid: and we really want Mommy. But “I’m thirsty” is what we say: it makes sense, it’s the feeling we have: our mouth is dry, our throat constricted. As a child, in the night, we don’t have exact words for it so I must be thirsty. But as adults we know what causes it: in the middle of the night, fear is what wakes us up.

No adult says, at that point, “Mommy, can I have some water?” Adults lay in bed and have a panic attack or get out of bed and take more meds: we have to get up to work tomorrow. We deal with the fear in our ways, looking out in the darkness and letting the tapes play over and over in our head.

I thirst.

The eternal, Triune God, in the Second Person in Human Flesh, is crying out because of a dry mouth, part of the whole Flight or Fight thing that the same God built into us for our protection.

This is God’s human weakness. Flight or fight, impossible with both feat and hands nailed down. Unable to even care for one’s needs like a child.

The God who made water. Who made mouths. Who made the nervous system. This God is afraid. This God is thirsty. This God… is about to die.

Was one of the first words ever taught to the Baby, the Word learning words, “yisemeh” – the Aramaic for “Thirsty”? His mother, standing there at the foot of the cross, hears her own baby again crying out “yisemeh”.

There is an icon, much beloved, called “Our Lady of Perpetual Help.” In the East it is called the Theotokos of the Passion. In it the child, Jesus, is held in Mary’s arms. About his head, two angels holding the instruments of the passion fly. One sandal is flopping loose because he didn’t tie it on. The story is that Jesus, the child, had a dream of his passion and cross and, waking up in fear. He ran to his mother for protection.

Eemma…Mommy… Yisemeh!

There is another, not so well known icon, the Akhtyr Icon of the Theotokos. Mary has much the same posture as in the Perpetual help icon, but Jesus is not in her arms.

Yisemeh!

Brothers and Sisters. This is love.

In this time of danger.
In this time of death.
In this time of fear.

God knows… we are all thirsty. We cannot have the chalice. Some of us still cannot even come to mass. We cannot touch to hug, to hold, or shake hands. This is a crucifixion for us. Some do this for safety, but we do not do this out of fear: rather it is out of love for our neighbor, for those who are weakest among us, for those who are most vulnerable.

Our hands are held back, our heart breaks, our love restrains us. Touch – when touch is most needed…

We thirst! We cry out to our mother, the Church who stands by watching and weeping for us.

Our God knows and understands: this is love.

In this time of danger.
In this time of death.
In this time of fear.

Christ our God has been here before us. Become of love, he has faced in mortal flesh, fear and death.

And Jesus has the victory.

We thirst with him today…
He will make us victorious with him.

• Introduction
• 2/28 Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.
• 3/5 Today you will be with me in paradise.
• 3/10 Woman, behold, thy son! Behold, thy mother!
• 3/15 My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?
• 3/20 I thirst.
• 3/25 It is finished.
• 3/30 Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit.