"I thirst" [Holy Thursday reflection]

One of Jesus’ final words He says aloud from the Cross is “I thirst.” Jesus thirsts for many things at the hour of His death, water certainly, to take away our sins certainly. But what He thirsts for most especially is our hearts to be in communion with His heart. 

His thirst for the hearts of His people was made plain well before the cross. Take the Samaritan woman at the well, when He requested “give me something to drink.” It was not so much water that He was asking for, but He was beginning to draw her heart to Himself.  

In this coronavirus world, many of us are fearful at this time. We fear death, illness, and very reasonably so, but for many of us, we also fear the unknown. Will this virus really affect me and my family? When will this come to an end? Many of us are asking ourselves these questions. 

Entering the unknown often produces anxiety within us. When we get anxious, we cling to what is known behind us, be it good, bad or indifferent. Far too often we shrink back instead of stepping forward.

This Holy Thursday we remember that Jesus did not shrink back when faced with the unknown. He knew it was His hour of death, but in His humanity, certainly much was unknown as to how the hours will go before Him. Was He anxious? I would say most certainly so in the Garden of Gethsemane. But Jesus took His heart, filled with the anxiety of death, pain, and the unknown, and He brought it to the heart of His father.

Now did the Father suddenly change His Son’s circumstances? No, for this was His hour to redeem the world by the Cross. But I ask, did the heart of Jesus change in coming before the Father? And I think so.

It was there in the garden, before His Father, that Jesus resolved to carry the Cross which lay ahead. His resolution is made known to us, for He Himself said, “no one takes my life from me. I lay my life down on my own accord.” 

In His hours on the Cross, Jesus makes His thirst known to us. He summons us to bring our hearts to himself, with all that we bear within them, be it fear, anxiety, sadness. He says “give it to me.” He wants our hearts to be in communion with Him, just as His heart is in communion with the Father.

In this time of so many unknowns, let’s respond to the summons of Jesus and give Him our hearts which He so thirsts for. There He will give us the courage to live as He did, always looking to the Father to show us the way.