DATE:  17 April 2014
TO:    Black Student Fellowship, ANTS
TITLE: Seven Last Words- “Tengo Sed” (I thirst)

GOSPEL READING: Juan/John 19:28-29
(LBLA) Después de esto, sabiendo Jesús que todo se había ya consumado, para que se cumpliera la Escritura, dijo*: Tengo sed.  

(KJV) After this, Jesus knowing that all things were now accomplished, that the scripture might be fulfilled, saith, I thirst.

I Thirst (John 19:28-29)
Many of us have heard these words explained before. I THIRST. I am sure that you have heard these words preached in the context of your faith tradition.

If you are like me, you may have heard last years message from this hill where we were left at a precipice. I THIRST. We who have heard that message were told that in fact, there will be a test.

And, seeing as how school is in session and we are diligently trying to complete our assignments, we know what tests feel like. I THIRST. We know what it feels like to thirst for answers and knowledge; after all we are only human.

But that man named Jesus was anything but common… We have heard Jesus speak 4 words:
Father forgive them, for they know not what they do
Truly, I say to you today, you will be with me in paradise.
Woman, behold your son. Son, behold your mother.
My God, my God, why have You forsaken me?

And finally we hear him say, I thirst.

Jesus the exocentric fulfillment of God’s promise, who had time and again healed the sick, Jesus who had turned water into wine, who would soon fulfill his calling to take away the sins of human kind… This unselfish Jesus, these words are the only words that are all about him. I THIRST.

Woman at the Well (John 4)
These words invite us to return to another time when Jesus asked for a drink. A Samaritan woman walks near a well and meets a stranger, “How can YOU ask me for a drink?” Jesus tells her that if she knew the gift of God, she would be asking for a drink and he would share living waters with her.

Jesus answered, “Everyone who drinks this water will be thirsty again,” I THIRST, and he is given vinegar.

As he explained to the Woman at the Well, “whoever drinks the water I give them will never thirst.” So what could we give him, but our bitter tears, the debris of our hearts, the dirt no one wants…vinegar. I THIRST.

Jesus told that woman that “Indeed, the water I give them will become in them a spring of water welling up to eternal life.” I THIRST says the world, how are you responding asks Jesus?

Did you give them vinegar? Or did you share the Living Water that was shared with you? The world is thirsty, have you noticed?

Better than Gatorade
Some thirst for clean waters, necessary to our human survival;
Some for Spiritual waters to quench an unexplainable thirst;

School is in session and there will be a test, if you are paying attention share what you have learned: creation is in need of God’s Thirst Quenching Waters.

Are you paying attention? AMEN!