Thirsting

Bread and Wine Reading: "Thirsting", Alexander Stuart Baillie

Scripture Reading: John 12: 24-33
Very truly, I tell you, unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains just a single grain; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Those who love their life lose it, and those who hate their life in this world will keep it for eternal life. Whoever serves me must follow me, and where I am, there will my servant be also. Whoever serves me, the Father will honor. “Now my soul is troubled. And what should I say—‘Father, save me from this hour’? No, it is for this reason that I have come to this hour. Father, glorify your name.” Then a voice came from heaven, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again.” The crowd standing there heard it and said that it was thunder. Others said, “An angel has spoken to him.” Jesus answered, “This voice has come for your sake, not for mine. Now is the judgment of this world; now the ruler of this world will be driven out. And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” He said this to indicate the kind of death he was to die.

Thirsting is a normal part of our human experience. It describes a profound human need. But when we become convinced that our desires are our needs, perhaps we are then thirsting for the wrong things. It is no less destructive than drinking saltwater. No matter how much you drink, your thirst will not be quenched. Alexander Baillie says that “there are those who thirst for everything save righteousness. Their lives are so engrossed and encompassed within the limits of their world of time-space that they forget that there might be some other relations to life. Such crass limitations make life little and cramped. But shutting out the Eternal, they lose all that is truly worthwhile. They forget that life abundant is not to be found within their little cosmos of human desires.”

We are all guilty of this—of narrowing that for which we thirst to things that we ourselves can obtain. Baillie cites the human thirst for wealth, for pleasure, or for a certain level in life, a certain rank or station. But in the depth of our souls, in that deepest God-image place that resides in us all, is an incredible thirst for the Divine. As St. Augustine said, “Thou hast made us for Thyself, and we cannot find rest until we find it in Thee.” Only God can quench our thirst for the Divine.

In the Scripture passage, Jesus promised that as he was lifted up, as he was carried away from the hopelessness and despair of this world, he would draw all people to himself. All would have their thirst quenched by the Divine. But in order to be lifted up, the self that one has created must die away. No longer can there be an attachment to this world—to wealth, to pleasure, to the place that one has obtained for oneself in life. Those are meaningless. But God through Christ offers a life that will always quench our thirst—a life with the Divine forever walking with us, a life for which our true self thirsts.

Baillie says that “one needs to keep on thirsting because life grows and enlarges. It has no end; it goes on and on; it becomes more beautiful…[One] cannot be satisfied until [one] attains unto the stature of Jesus, unto a perfect [human], and ever thirsts for God.” We all thirst for God in our deepest being. But it is only when we become fully human, the image in which we were made, with the mind of the Christ, that we will know that God created us to thirst for nothing but God. It is that thirst for the Divine that glorifies God’s name.

Discussion Questions:
1.) What image of thirst is present in your own life?
2.) To what worldly things are there attachments in your life?
3.) How would you describe that deep thirst for God?

So go forth toward the Cross with a thirst for God!

Grace and Peace,

Shelli