“Later, knowing that everything had now been finished, and so that Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, ‘I am thirsty.’  A jar of wine vinegar was there, so they soaked a sponge in it, put the sponge on a stalk of the hyssop plant, and lifted it to Jesus’ lips.  When he had received the drink, Jesus said, ‘It is finished.’  With that, he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.” John 19:28-30 [NIV]

Today the man who knew me best in the world died.  It was a cruel death – brutal, painful – and part of me has wished, over and over, that I had never heard that Jesus would be in Jerusalem.  That I had never set out on my pilgrimage to see him, to tell him how he had changed my life.  And then when I arrived, when I learned that he had been taken, that he would be executed, why did I stay?  I suppose, though I am just a woman, and a Samaritan at that, I wanted to be his witness.  And perhaps – I wanted to see a miracle.  I hoped that finally he would reveal himself in all of his power.  Instead I saw a man, ripped, pierced, suffering – who wants to see their beloved in such agony?

I don’t know if he saw me.  To be honest, I don’t KNOW if he would remember me.  We only met once, and our time together was very, very short.  So you may think I’m crazy when I tell you this, but…  I think he spoke to me.  From the cross, I mean.  The time was growing short – I could tell he was getting weaker – his breathing was so shallow and labored.  But then, suddenly, with a great effort he pulled up his head, looked right into my eyes, and cried, so clearly, “I thirst.”

Immediately, I found myself back by that well in the scorching heat of the noon-day sun.  No one would come to draw water at that time if they had a choice – but I didn’t.  The other women of the village had made that clear.  When a strange, dusty man asked me for a drink, all of my defenses went up.  In my experience, men who talked to me  – well, they weren’t really interested in conversation.  And this man was clearly a Jew – a fact I reminded him of sharply as I turned away.

When he answered me, I thought at first he babbled like a fool.  For one who moved with such quiet confidence, his words were strange.  “If you knew the gift of God,” he said, “and who it is that asks you for a drink, you would have asked him and he would have given you living water.”  I confess, I mocked him to his face – how will you draw this water?  Are you truly so great – you can do this without a bucket?  But his next words and the knowingness of his gaze caught me.  “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” he said, “but those who drink the water I give them will never thirst.  Indeed the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.”

To be honest, I still didn’t understand exactly what he was offering – I just knew I wanted it.  Never to make the hot, humiliating, lonely mid-day trek to the well again – and maybe – something more.  Something in me was drawing toward this man – but then he asked me to bring my husband to him.  All of the old wounds re-surfaced, and I covered them with a polite lie.  It didn’t work.  He knew my entire ugly history – and, the most shocking thing was, I saw compassion rather than judgment in his eyes.

I tried just once more to hold him at bay – in a perverse way, I wanted him to remember that he was supposed to look down on me, like everyone else did.  He just smiled at me in a way that seemed to recognize me as one of his own.  “A time is coming,” he said, “and has now come when the true worshippers [‘when you,’ my heart whispered] will worship the Father in Spirit and in truth, for they are the kind of worshippers that the Father seeks.”

Could it be?  I finally drew close to him, saying with hesitant wonder, “I know that Messiah is coming.  When he comes, he will explain everything to us.”  He knew what I was asking.  “I, the one speaking to you – I am he.”

His friends were uncomfortable when they returned to find us talking, so close together.  I didn’t stay long – I needed to go anyway, to tell the others of my village, whether they would believe me or not – and as I ran away, I heard his friends urging him to eat.  “My food,” he replied, “is to do the will of him who sent me and to finish his work.”

This is the man who changed my life – the one I heard cry out on the cross, “I thirst,” just moments before it was finished.  You may find the words unremarkable – he was a man, after all.  I know – I saw him, I even touched him – and men, especially men suffering as he did, thirst.  But he looked at me as he said it, and I wonder if he wasn’t talking about something more.  If he wasn’t reminding me once again to look more carefully, below the surface, beyond the obvious physical realities.  I think he was talking about the desire of his heart and asking me once again to share a drink with him, this time from a much deeper well.

He hungered to do the will of his Father – wasn’t he thirsty for that as well?  He offered me living water, a cooling draft that would draw me into the arms of his Father, the life of his Father – as he hung there, so very alone on that cross, didn’t he long for that as well?  I am sure that many, more learned than I, will offer theories about which words of Scripture Jesus fulfilled today.  They will offer scholarly proofs and persuasive commentary.  All I can tell you is that as he spoke, my heart instinctively cried back in the words of the Psalmist: “As the deer pants for the water, so my soul pants for you…  My soul thirsts for God, for the living God… When can I go and meet with God?”

Do you know what the soldiers offered Jesus in response to his cry of thirst?  Vinegar.  Rank, sour, disgusting…  As angry as I am at that memory, do you know what I offered him that day so long ago?  Essentially, the same thing.  I never did draw him water, but I drenched him with my anger, my pain, my sin.  And just like the vinegar, he took it and drank.  Then he held out a cool cup brimming with forgiveness and new life.

I am told that on the night Jesus was betrayed, he took a cup of wine, and told his friends, “Drink from it, all of you.  This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.”  He takes our sin – and he offers us so much more in return.  Nothing less than complete acceptance, total forgiveness, full restoration to life in the Spirit.  It is a mystery, and I am only a woman, and a Samaritan at that – but this is what I have seen, this is what I have heard.

I wrote this imaginative exercise as a Lenten devotional for our church a year ago; it was posted at the Emerging Women blog earlier this week.

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Tags: Lent, Spirituality
Filed under: Spirituality