Fifth and Sixth Words: ‘I thirst’ and ‘It is finished’

For the sake of space (I am preparing a separate series of reflections for Holy Week), and because these two words come as part of the same sequence in St John’s Passion, I have decided to link them both together in this week’s reflection.

 

Fifth Word: ‘I thirst’, John 19.28.

‘After this, when Jesus knew that all was now finished, he said (in order to fulfil the scripture), ‘I am thirsty.’ A jar full of sour wine was standing there. So they put a sponge full of the wine on a branch of hyssop and held it to his mouth. When Jesus had received the wine, he said, ‘It is finished.’ Then he bowed his head and gave up his spirit.

[John 19.28-30]

 

As humans we are made up of water (biologically speaking about 90% of us is made up of water). We need water to live, much more so than food. We can last for a while without food, by only for a little while without water. Yet thirst isn’t just about the desire for the quenching of thirst, we can hunger and thirst for things like righteousness and love. To thirst and to have our thirst quenched is the fulfilment of a human desire for completion and comfort.

 

This word from the cross only appears in John’s Gospel where it is related to the Psalms (69.21 & 22.15), and John tells us that Jesus speaks this word to fulfil prophecy. This is not an explanation I am particularly happy with, partly because I don’t think we should use the Hebrew scriptures as a shopping list for prophecies about Jesus (proof-texting), partly because there is a deeper resonance with this word and the encounter with the woman at the well in John 4. There Jesus promises the woman the water of the Holy Spirit, a water that quenches all thirst springing from a well that will not run dry. Now Jesus thirsts for that same water himself, and whilst he is offered sour wine to drink, what he truly desires is now beyond his reach.

 

And yet the water Jesus promises, and for which he thirsts, will be given by God at Pentecost, when the Holy Spirit is poured out on the Church. As Christians we thirst for the action of God in our lives, for his presence and his very self to be active in us and working through us, to change us and transform us so that we might be as he created us to be.

 

One of the actions of the Holy Spirit is that of participation in Creation. In the creation story it is the Spirit of God that hovers over the as yet unformed creation, and it is the Spirit of God that is breathed into Adam at his creation. It is now to creation old and new that we turn in our next reflection.

 

Sixth Word: ‘It is finished’, John 19.30

St John’s Gospel is a curious one, more philosophical than practical, its writer focuses on the teaching of Jesus rather than his stories and miracles as the other (Synoptic) Gospels do. When miracles do appear there are only seven of them, relating to the seven days of creation. Similarly, when John opens his Gospel it is with the words ‘In the beginning’. For Jesus to say from the cross ‘It is finished’ is his saying that the old creation of sin and death has now come to an end, the new is coming to birth.

 

If we skip forward to Easter Day we meet Mary Magdalene in the Garden by the tomb, noticing a man she presumes to the gardener she asks him where Jesus’s body has been taken. Again we are taken to the beginning and the book of Genesis where we learn that Adam, the first man was placed in the Garden of Eden to be its gardener. Jesus, St Paul tells us in Romans, is the second Adam the one who comes to undo the sin of the first. So it is quite right that Mary should mistake Jesus for the gardener, for that is what he is.

 

Out of all the words from the Cross this is a the one that is triumphant. It is a cry not of desolation but of joy. The victory has been won, sin has been defeated, the old creation has come to an end, the new is coming to birth. Following  this word of triumph Jesus submits himself to death (‘he gave up the ghost’). Death is not demanded of him, his life is not taken from him rather he willingly gives up his sprit in a final act of triumph. Now he goes to his rest it being the eve of the Sabbath, the day when God rests from his work of creation.

Note on the image: I have chosen this Icon of St Julian of Norwich for this week's image. The image shows the hand God hold creation, and is a reminder of St Julian's words that in one of her visions (showings) she sees a hazelnut, and is told that is all that has been created, and that God loves it. A reminder that God loves creation (old and yet to come), and holds all things together in being.

 

For reflection and Action:
Pray for that the Holy Spirit may be active in your life, and in the life of the Church, that those who thirst for God’s presence may truly know it. Pray to that the Holy Spirit may continue his work of new creation in you, bringing forth the new the life of the new creation, and that he might help us to care for God’s creation the earth.