Reading Mother Teresa--"I thirst"

“I am thirsty.” John 19:28 

Sometimes people here in the upper Midwest claim we’re blessed with only two seasons: winter and Fourth of July. The line works, I think, for two reasons: one, winters can be brutal; and two, so can Fourth of July.

When we moved to Iowa from Arizona, we didn’t expect to be clobbered by heat, but we were. The house we rented was not air-conditioned, and, that first July, we nearly died – that’s overstatement. What we’d left was higher temps, but what we’d discovered was thick, dank humidity.

Right about now, mid-summer, nothing dispatches thirst like lemonade. Pink, white, raspberry – no matter. It’s a reminder of a boyhood bucking bales when icy canning jars full of the stuff were the only antidote to heat stroke. That’s overstatement too. You just get thirsty, really thirsty, in July haymows.

We just finished a sojourn in New Mexico, where we hiked over murky lava flows and through elegant sandstone at elevations that sucked your body dry. Always pack water. Drink it--parks and trails at 7000 feet don’t pussyfoot; their signs use the command form. Water is life. I drank buckets.

I’ve spent most of my adult life believing that if we underplay anything at all about Jesus Christ it’s his human side. The great mystery of his existence is that he was, at once, both God and man. Impossible, yet there he is, both. Where we underestimate him, I’ve often thought, is in his humanity. We like him as Lord and Savior, but he could be almost unfeeling at times – witness his seeming disregard for his own mother when he started out on his own in the temple. If you want to follow me, he told his disciples, forget Mom and Dad – actions he modeled himself.

He was human. Jesus Christ was human, too, not just Lord and Maker and King and Redeemer. He pulled human flesh as if it were spandex, for Pete’s sake – and mine.

Therefore, “I am thirsty” is an utterance I’ve often considered to be a clear indication of his humanity. The physical agony of the cross, far beyond my imagination, prompted very human needs – he got thirsty, horrifically so. He was human. Be careful, I might have said – and still would – about over-spiritualizing him.

Then there’s Mother Teresa, whose very ministry was created – by her own account – by her immense interpretive vision of that very Good Friday utterance – “I thirst” (41).

Why does Jesus say “I thirst”? What does it mean? Something so hard to explain in words – . . . “I thirst” is something much deeper than just Jesus saying “I love you.” Until you know, deep inside that Jesus thirsts for you – you can’t begin to know who He wants to be for you. Or who He wants you to be for Him. (42)

That’s what MT believed.

Jesus Christ was Mother Teresa’s sole motivational speaker, and his words, especially those uttered in his agony, were her rallying cry. She transformed his thirst into a metaphor and spent her life working to quench the emptiness he felt at Calvary, an emptiness satisfied only by the poor – their love and their souls. His thirst for them became her soul’s motivation.

She saw Jesus dehydrated, wearied, nearly dead; and she sought to bring him relief on the streets of Calcutta by satisfying his thirst for those poor he loved so greatly.

It may well be I’ve been wrong for all these years. Perhaps in stressing his humanity, I’ve neglected his divinity. Perhaps in taking him literally, I’ve not seen him spiritually, up there on the cross at Golgotha, body and soul dehydrated, his heart overworking to pump his dehydrated blood because he wants, more than anything, not just water but, as MT might say it, those he loves, his people, splashing over him, gushing with love.

That’s the way she read it, and that’s the way she lived in Calcutta.

Something to consider, even in our muggiest July.