People have survived without food for weeks or even months, but to go without water for just one day will put us in dire straits. Yet, we have other thirsts that are deeperand less obvious than our thirst for water. Some of us thirst for acceptance, for intimacy; for forgiveness or reconciliation, for a way out of our rut; others for reassurance from our fears; for relief from pain; for healing for one we love; for peace from the emotional overload to which our daily responsibilities subject us; for justice and wrongs made right. Some of us know we thirst, but we’re not quite sure for what. Others describe a thirst for God.
The psalmist writes of his deepest thirst this way: “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.” In another psalm thirst is imaged this way, “As a deer longs for flowing streams, so my soul longs for you, O God. My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When shall I come and behold the face of God?”
JESUS MEETS THE WOMAN AT THE WELL
In the Gospel of John, tired from his journey, hot because it’s mid-day, Jesus is thirsty and asks for a drink from the Samaritan woman at the well. Later in the Gospel, before Jesus gives up his spirit on the cross, he calls out, “I thirst.” Does he thirst merely for water, for relief from his torture, or for death (which at this point would come as a friend)? Does he thirst for some word of human love or affirmation? For divine intervention? Or is his thirst now for union with God?
