Sermon for Friday, April 18, 2025 || Good Friday || John’s Passion

Here we are on Good Friday. We’ve just heard the Passion Gospel, a reading of such overwhelming depth and consequence that we have trouble taking in the whole thing at once. So my practice each year on Good Friday is to take a single moment of the Passion and dwell with it. Today, this moment happens when Jesus, hanging from the cross, says, “I am thirsty.”

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The Gospel writer tells us that Jesus says this to fulfill the scripture, most likely Psalm 69, one of the profound psalms of lament. Psalm 69:21 (v. 23 in the BCP Psalter) says, “They gave me poison for food. To quench my thirst they gave me vinegar to drink” (CEB). This explanation of Jesus’ outcry is one option, but not the only one. Indeed, this moment illustrates a common occurrence in the Gospel According to John: moments often serve double duty, a practical one and a spiritual one. In this case, the spiritual element is the connection to the psalms. The practical element is that Jesus is thirsty.

Unlike Matthew, Mark, and Luke, John’s Gospel does not give us a timeline of Jesus’ hours on the cross. But it’s safe to say that by the time he cries out about his thirst Jesus has been on the cross for some hours. Death by crucifixion took an excruciatingly long time, eventually killing not through loss of blood but suffocation and dehydration. Soldiers broke the legs of the two men crucified with Jesus because they weren’t dying quickly enough. So, it’s safe to assume that Jesus actually was thirsty.

It turns out that this is the second time in the Gospel of John that Jesus is thirsty. Way back in Chapter 4, Jesus, tired out from a long journey, sits down in the heat of the day at a well in Samaria. There he strikes up a conversation with a Samaritan woman who has come to draw water, and he asks her for a drink. This prompts a long and interesting exchange between them, culminating in Jesus revealing his divine identity to her. In fact, the Samaritan woman, a person who is ostracized in her own town, is the very first person to whom Jesus reveals this identity. She tells him, in a somewhat confused way, that she knows the Messiah is coming. And Jesus says, “I Am,” those two special words that reach all the way back to God telling Moses God’s name: “I Am Who I Am.”

So it is possible that the Gospel writer is pulling, not double duty, but triple duty when Jesus says, “I’m thirsty.” Not only is Jesus fulfilling the words of the psalm, not only is Jesus actually thirsty in the narrative; the writer is also reminding us readers about that vital conversation at the well. For in that conversation, Jesus reveals his divine identity, which is amplified by his glorification on the cross. In that conversation, Jesus also speaks about the spring of living water that gushes up to eternal life. Jesus makes the woman feels so deeply and beautifully known that she tells her fellow Samaritans, “He told me everything I’ve ever done.” Jesus gives her the gift of himself, a gift he gives the whole world when he stretches his arms of love on the hard wood of the cross.

To close this homily, I’d like to share with you a song I wrote many years ago that connects these two moments in the Gospel: the story of the woman at the well and Jesus crying out, “I am thirsty.” This song is called “The Well is Deep.”

The Well is Deep

As the deer longs for the water-brooks
So my soul longs after you.
My spirit is athirst for God,
Athirst for all that’s good and true.

But I have no bucket and the well is deep:
I see the water down below
Could life eternal gush up like a spring
The well begin to overflow?

The desert is a place of emptiness,
But God makes it a place of springs.
The sand will be afire with blossoms;
The desert shall rejoice and sing.

But I have no bucket and the well is deep:
I see the water down below
Could life eternal gush up like a spring
And the well begin to overflow?

From the throne of God a river flows,
Bright as crystal, fresh as birth.
The river waters trees of healing;
God rain grace upon the earth.

(Now I know) I need no bucket though the well is deep,
And though the water’s far below.
For life eternal gushes like a spring.
The well will always overflow.

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Photo by Jeremy Brady on Unsplash.