John 19:28
After this Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfil the scripture), “I thirst.”
John is the most lofty of the gospels. So it often easy to look for the deeper meaning behind the sayings of Jesus recorded there. We read that Jesus said “I thirst” and reflect–rightly–on how pregnant those two words were. We reflect on all that Jesus thirsted for: righteousness, the coming of the Kingdom, the New Heaven and the New Earth. All this is certainly latent in his cry of thirst. But it is important to remember as well that at the root of this is a raw basic physiological fact: Jesus was horrendously dehydrated and dying for lack of water among his many other physical agonies. There are people in our world, right now, who thirst. Today, go to a charity like Mercy Corps (www.mercycorps.org) and give them financial help to provide clean water to people who need it desperately.
