Praying the Passion, Part 5 - "I Thirst"

Later, knowing that all was now completed, and so that the Scripture would be fulfilled, Jesus said, "I am thirsty."- John 19:28

My Lenten discipline has been to write a prayer for each of the 40 days of Lent. The last seven prayers center on the seven last sayings of Jesus uttered from the cross. This prayer is based on his fifth saying from the cross.

"I Thirst"

From the foot of the cross, I behold you, Lord:
  high and lifted up.
And I hear what you say from the cross.
  Every word.

Almost inaudibly, the words flow 
  from your cracked, bloodied lips: "I thirst."

Thirst. 
It is the most primal longing a human experiences.
You have joined our struggle, Lord.
You have experienced the most basic need
  any of us will ever experience: thirst.
As you hang on the cross,
  there is no human agony foreign to you.

Thirst.
It speaks to more than our physical longing.
It speaks, even more vividly, perhaps,
  to the longing of our soul:

O God, you are my God, I seek you;  my soul thirsts for you,my flesh faints for you,  as in a dry and weary land where there is no water.

Forsaken by God,
  you thirst.
You are experiencing the condition that I deserve,
  in order to redeem me. From my own thirst.

But may I be so bold as to consider another thirst, Lord?
Can it be that on the cross 
  you not only experience human thirst for God,
but also, maybe, are you expressing a thirst
  that God has for us?
For you have told us of the father who scans the horizon
  as if thirsting after reconciliation with his lost son;
and you have told us of the shepherd who searches
     high and low
  in deep longing to find the one lost sheep.

Could it be, dear Lord, that your thirst
  is for us to turn to you?

Either way, your thirst draws me to you.
Your thirst arises from your love.
And it makes me thirst for you,
  and for the life only you can give.

And so I thirst, too. Because you thirst.