Good Friday - April 3, 2026 - John 18:1-19:42 - The Rev. Colette Hammesfahr

 

April 3, 2026 – Good Friday - John 18:1-19:42

 I have a friend who is a nurse for an elementary school in downtown Savannah. The school is close to a small community of people living in tents—families and children without stable housing. One day, a young girl came into my friend’s office, not feeling well. She was quiet and withdrawn. My friend did what nurses do…she cared for her, checked on her, and tried to make her comfortable. At one point she handed her a 16 oz bottle of water to see if that would help her. The nurse left the room for a few minutes. When she came back, the girl had not opened the bottle yet. She just sat holding it. The nurse finally said, “Do you want me to help you with the cap?” The girl looked up and said, “No, I can open it.” And then she said something my friend will never forget, “I’ve just never had my own bottle of water before.” And in that moment, something so ordinary…something most of us carry around without thinking…became something almost unimaginable. She just held it.

On the cross, Jesus does not say very much. But one of the things he does say is, “I am thirsty.” It’s easy to let those words just pass us by. It’s just another detail in the story. But thirst is never just thirst. It’s something deeper. Being thirsty is about something we lack. It’s about what we need and about how fragile we really are.

Throughout his ministry, Jesus often spoke about thirst. He comes to the woman at the well first asking for a drink and then saying, “Those who drink of the water that I will give them will never be thirsty. The water that I will give will become in them a spring of water gushing up to eternal life.” Jesus doesn’t just offer her water; he becomes the source. At the temple he cries out, “Let anyone who is thirsty come to me, and let the one who believes in me drink.” It’s a public invitation for those who are thirsty, to receive. In his nighttime visit with Nicodemus, Jesus tells him, “No one can enter the kingdom of God without being born of water and Spirit.” Water doesn’t just refresh us; it’s a sign of rebirth, a sign of new life. Jesus offers living water. Jesus invites the thirsty. Jesus promises that those who come to him will never thirst again. And then…hanging on the cross, Jesus says, “I am thirsty.” The one who said, “You will never be thirsty” now says, “I am thirsty.” The one who gives, now has nothing. The one who fills, is emptied.

John tells us something else in this story of Jesus on the cross. Right after Jesus says, “I am thirsty,” they lift a sponge to his lips and give him sour wine. The one who has always offered living water is given something bitter. The one who said, “Come to me and drink” is given something no one would choose to drink.

Maybe this is what Good Friday asks us to see: That Jesus doesn’t stand at a distance from our need. He’s not the one who simply hands us the water. He becomes the one who knows what it is to thirst. Not in theory or in a metaphor, but in his body. In his flesh. In a place where everything has been taken from him. Every place in our lives that feels empty or dry…when it feels like there is just not enough, it’s no longer a place where God is absent. Because on the cross, God is there saying, “I am thirsty.”

I think that’s what makes that little girl’s moment so holy. She held onto that bottle of water like it was something sacred. She knew what it was like to go without. Jesus is not just a man who gives us living water. On the cross, he becomes the one who has gone without. Jesus says, “I am thirsty.” Amen.