Recent Sermons
St. Andrew's Church
An Anglican Church • Grimsby, Ontario, Canada
Preached by
Stuart Pike
Rector
For More Information Contact the Office
Notice any errors? Have a suggestion? Or a comment? Then ....
Lenten Ecumenical Worship
I Thirst
John 19: 28-29
St. John's Presbyterian Church, Grimsby
22 March 2007
Water is everywhere in Canada. It pours upon us from the heavens either as rain or snow and when it does we often complain about it. We live in a country which has a phenomenal amount of fresh water per capita when compared with other countries of the world. Ours is a land glistening with lakes and rivers. The water flows through copper pipes right into our very homes and we think nothing of it. In our abundance we forget to be amazed and grateful for the gift.
I learned to swim quite young - though these days they are teaching babies how to swim! One of my first memories of swimming was as a young boy on a hot day running down a long wooden dock and jumping off into the lake. I can still remember the cold rush and thrill of it. What luxury to be immersed in life-giving, thirst-quenching water! But then, I, too, forget to be grateful until something reminds me.
And Jesus said, "I am thirsty."
I remember spending a month in East Africa several years ago. There water is scarce. Some days we had about one cup of water with which to wash each day and, of course, no shower. I would see the women and girls come each day to stand in line at a standpipe just outside the mission house in Dar Es Salaam. The stand-pipe manager would allow them water one at a time and they would make their return journey home carrying their heavy burdens usually upon their heads. They would silently and gracefully walk at the side of the dusty road to their home - grateful for the water which they were carrying. I, too, was grateful for water in a land of heat and dust.
" I am thirsty."
These words of Jesus were just before his death. He through whom all things came to be - through whom all the water of the earth (and the earth itself) was created - it is he who is suffering this deep thirst unto death.
We know that Palestine at the time of Jesus was a dry and dusty land. It was and still is a land where people value water and are grateful for it. Jesus had been marched from the garden of Gethsemane and then back and forth through Jerusalem all night. Then he had been beaten and scourged and, bleeding, had carried his cross through the dust. Then he was crucified and hung there for three hours before uttering his words, "I am thirsty." just before he died. I think that none of us can even imagine his thirst.
There are some who think of Jesus as being God simply wearing a human mask. His suffering on the cross, they think, was nothing for God. He could take it. It is important for us to realize that Jesus was fully human. St. Paul writes to the Church at Philippi and points out that though Christ Jesus was by nature divine, he did not grasp for himself a rank as equal with God, but, rather, chose to empty himself to become a humble slave and to live the life of a man. Still more, he abased himself further to obedience to death on a cross.
Jesus was fully human when he died on the cross, he felt abandoned, he felt excruciating pain, he felt fear, he felt sadness, he felt loss, he felt thirst. Our God knows the suffering which we experience, he experienced it all.
"I am thirsty."
Thirst means something else as well. Although we might have an inkling about physical thirst, each one of us knows something about spiritual thirst. There is a thirst in each of us: our deepest need is a thirst which must be quenched. It is about an emptiness inside.
St. Augustine addresses God as he writes, "You have made us for yourself, and our hearts are rest-less till they find their rest in you." He wants God to fill the emptiness inside.
No doubt the 15th century mathematician and philosopher, Pascale was thinking of St. Augustine's words as he wrote, "What else does this craving, and this helplessness, proclaim but that there was once in man a true happiness, of which all that now remains is the empty print and trace? This he tries in vain to fill with everything around him, seeking in things that are not there the help he cannot find in those that are, though none can help, since this infinite abyss can be filled only with an infinite and immutable object; in other words by God himself."
There is, in other words, a God-shaped hole within each one of us which cannot be satisfied by anything else, but the presence of God. People try to slake this thirst in so many ways and with so many things, yet nothing can satisfy but a relationship with God. Many people never learn this truth while they walk this earth.
The Psalmist writes, in Paslm 63: "O God, you are my God, I seek you, my soul thirsts for you; my flesh faints for you, as in a dry and weary land where there is no water."
The irony is that in East Africa, where the physical landscape is parched, the Church is growing in leaps and bounds and so many people are filled with the joy of Christ in their hearts. Our land, though glistening with lakes and rivers is a dry and weary land.
"I am thirsty," Jesus says. We are thirsty too.
Earlier on, as Jesus was travelling through Samaria he encounter a woman of that land at a well and, breaking all the rules of society, asks of her a drink of water. We know the story, he tells her that he can give her living water, and those who drink the water which he gives will never thirst again.
Jesus empties himself on the cross to take upon himself our physical and spiritual thirst. And he does this so that he may offer to us living water, the only thing which will fill our deepest need.
We begin our Christian journey through the waters of baptism and that water represents to us the living water of God's love given to us through Jesus who poured out his life for us that our hearts might be filled and our deep thirst quenched. I would like each one of us here to remember from now on, each time that you take a sip of water, let it be a reminder of Jesus' love for us. And let us be grateful.
Let us remember Jesus' thirst. Let us remember Jesus' living water. And let us be filled with the presence of God. Amen.
