Thirst

I recently spent a wonderful week at Duke Divinity School for study leave and blogged about the "holy discomfort" I felt during one of the worship services I attended in Goodson Chapel and about how that was probably a very good experience for me to have.  Well, there were also moments of quiet reflection and stillness that suited me much better, and during one of those periods of silence in the chapel, I noticed the words on this side of the communion table -- "I thirst."  Apparently the other side reads, "Alleluia," and is therefore appropriate during the rest of the church year, but as I was unable to get a picture, I'll have to take everyone's word for it.

"I thirst" caught my eye partly because every other communion table I have ever seen bears some version of  "Do this in remembrance of me" on it, and partly because the theme of "thirst" keeps cropping up in my life. The day before I started my study leave, the senior pastor where I serve had preached on thirsting for God from Psalm 42 and 43, and just outside the entrance to the chapel, my eyes were drawn to these two beautiful artistic renditions of those very psalms.

As I marveled at the coincidental timing of that particular sermon and my visit to this place with that communion table and those particular psalms so prominently displayed, the words of one of Charles Wesley's hymns sprang into my mind.  "Jesus, Lover of My Soul" is one of my very favorite hymns, and there is so much rich imagery to feast upon, but these lines especially fit with this theme of thirsting and yearning for the only One who can truly satisfy and make us whole and holy --

Plenteous grace with thee is found, 

grace to cover all my sin; 

let the healing streams abound; 

make and keep me pure within. 

Thou of life the fountain art; 

freely let me take of thee; 

spring thou up within my heart, 

rise to all eternity. 

Charles Wesley died at his London home on March 29, 1788, praising God and creating poetry to express that praise almost to the very end.  In his long life, he had experienced that deep thirst for the assurance that he belonged to God, that his sins had been forgiven, and that he would be made and kept "pure within," and in his verse, he gave voice to that in a way no one before or since has been able to do.  He and his elder brother John trusted in the love and grace of Christ and spent themselves in sharing that good news to as many people as they could for as long as they could.  They had taken of the fountain of life and felt it spring up within their warmed hearts, and they yearned for others to be splashed with those healing streams.  It was never just about quenching their own thirst for salvation; it was always about leading others to that "plenteous grace" found in Christ. 

I sat and pondered all these things over the next few days.  It made me wonder if my own thirst is more about what I want or if I am truly allowing the Holy Spirit to take me into unfamiliar places in order to guide other thirsty souls towards God even when it is uncomfortable and strange.  And it made me wonder if there ever comes a time when that thirst is completely satisfied on this side of the grave.  If the accounts of the deaths of Charles and John are accurate at all, they kept on thirsting to be used by God right on up until they drew their last breaths.  That is quite a model for the rest of us, but is it impossible?   If we keep these images and these words before our eyes and in our hearts and in our lives, I believe we will find that our thirst is paradoxically both quenched and quickened, until the day comes when we take of that fountain of grace in the kingdom of God and it rises up in our hearts to all eternity, too.  What do you think?