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I thirst

John 19: 28

 

No courageous witness to truth, whether within,

or outside, a consciously expressed Christian faith,

can be far from the Cross of Crist-

yet neither could it exist,

the Christian would affirm,

but for a God whose forgiving love is Christ

-CFD Moule-

 

 

 

 

Opening Meditation

 

Even Jesus thirsted!

hanging on the cross,

even Jesus

needed

someone willing to moisten

His parched lips.

 

To us Jesus

is bread

and water of life,

nourishing us

for the life eternal.

Yet He knew

the pressing needs

of the human body;

He hungered in the wilderness;

He thirsted on the cross.

 

And still He thirsts.

Where men and women

suffer hunger;

where children die for lack

of clean water,

the cry from the cross is again heard:

‘I am thirsty’.

 

Do not allow us to forget, Lord,

that in the needs

of the hungry

and the thirsty

it is you who are asking

for our aid.

Save us, we pray,

from failing you,

by failing them.

 

To consider…

 

• Has anyone asked you for a glass of water? Have you given it?
• We are born alone and we die alone. When have you felt most alone?  Have human relationships helped?  Has your relationship with God helped?
• What can I do when God feels a thousand miles away?
• How do we know God cares?
• Some cannot always find the answers they desire. Is it because they don’t have enough faith?

 

 

 

 

 

 

Closing meditation

 

I am thirsty

 

You have made us for yourself.

We know it, even if we cannot name it.

 

We have had these bodies and these minds long enough

to learn to live with our limitations.

 

Yet despite this,

Something in us hankers, yearns, thirsts for something better,

Something greater which we know is there.

 

Beautiful music ends and we wish it could continue.

 

We embrace, then refrain from embracing

And wish that we could be held for ever.

We think deeply or feel deeply

And wish that this sense of being caught up in living

Would not be interrupted

By the mundane things in life.

 

We sense the disappointment in dashed hopes

That deserve to be fulfilled,

In missed opportunities

Which should have led to joy not frustration,

In people whose potential

Has been buried or denied and deserves to flourish.

 

So much of life demands a resolution.

 

So thank you for this incompleteness,

Thank you for this yearning,

Thank you for this thirst.

 

Thank you for giving us enough of you to want more,

And so to sense the fullness of eternity within the limits of time.  Amen

 

 

 

To think about:

 

• Faith is seeing the God we try to love in the people we don’t
• Faith is about knowing and accepting the reality in which God has placed us, and that reality is always, what is best for us.
• Jesus wasn’t a Bible scholar, or a physicist, or a professor of law, He was our Savior.
• The need to be right- the sign of a vulgar mind. JP Sartre
• We are worth what we are willing to share with others. Moses Montefiore

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