'I thirst' by Amy Barker Willers [Holy Week Vigil 2022]
Jesus gave us a litany of last words, known as the Seven Last Words of Christ. The deathbed words of the Suffering Servant provide a framework for Holy Week. Each day between now and Resurrection Sunday, seven friends will share their own stories to help us retrieve lament and to keep vigil with Jesus. Their stories have helped form my understanding of cruciform suffering and I believe they could also encourage you too.
Each short story will be paired with an image, a Scripture passage, and a prayer. This year I’ve curated a series of contemporary icons from Ukrainian iconographers. As we hold space for each other’s stories, we take shelter under the outstretched arms of Christ for every story of suffering around the world. In order to lean toward the suffering in Ukraine, one of our storytellers is giving us the opportunity to send help to two organizations on the ground in Ukraine and neighboring friendly countries, and to receive a special thank you gift from Michelle Van Loon in return.
Would you read Amy’s story with an open heart for any words Christ might be speaking to you?
Jesus the Grapevine and The Last Supper, Natalya Rusetska (b. 1984, Khmelnytskyi, Ukraine) - Source
“After this, Jesus, knowing that all was now finished, said (to fulfill the Scripture), ‘I thirst.’ A jar full of sour wine stood there, so they put a sponge full of the sour wine on a hyssop branch and held it to his mouth.”
I thirst
by Amy Barker Willers
My first child was born with a congenital heart defect. Her first year of life was marked by tears (hers and mine), scary doctor’s appointments, and ultimately surgery to correct the problem. During this time, I sunk into what I now realize was a deep depression. I had no car and was stuck in the house all day with a very fussy baby. I had no community and I was so lonely. I wish I had known at the time that I needed counseling or more to get through. I wish someone had suggested that to me.
I thirst.
I remember one time, after a particularly scary doctor’s appointment, I brought my baby over to my mom’s. The doctor had just told me that my baby’s heart was very enlarged. And the doctor had been frustrated during the appointment because she couldn’t get an accurate picture of the heart. The baby wouldn’t stop crying long enough to let them perform the test. I was frustrated, too, thinking Shouldn’t this doctor realize this baby never stopped crying?? It was part of the issue related to her heart.
I thirst.
After relaying this story and much of my frustration to my mom, I added, “I just don’t want anything to happen to her. It was so hard to get her here!” (I had had a pretty traumatic labor with her.)
My mom looked at me and said, “And you love her.”
I looked at my baby and thought, oh yeah, I’m supposed to love her.
Shame. Such shame. I immediately felt shame for that thought. I knew something wasn’t right at that point but didn’t know enough to get any help.
I thirst.
Eventually, my daughter did have a heart catheterization to correct the problem. Thankfully it was a success and there weren’t any other issues - especially as there had been talk of a few other possible problems that would have required open-heart surgery.
I am grateful for the modern technology that filled that hole in my daughter’s heart. I know that we could have been living very different lives right now. But it makes me wonder what can fill the hole in my heart for those missing years of joy with my baby?
I thirst.
Through the years, I have been able to see and name the depression that I walked through during that hard time in our lives. And for better or worse, I try to guess the reasons why God would have allowed us to walk through all that. But no reasons that I can come up with, even 11 years later, feel redemptive enough for what we walked through.
My daughter did improve and we noticed a marked difference in her behavior. But it wasn’t until my second child was born, three years later, that I felt the depression lift and I rediscovered joy.
Now as my daughter grows older and I try to reach back for sweet memories of her, I only find numbness. I look at old pictures and videos and I can see now how precious and sweet that time was, but I just couldn’t see it back then. And it’s only now, as she takes more and more steps away from me, that I am realizing more and more what I have lost.
I still thirst.
I want some satiating, magical potion to restore those years to me.
Jesus’s last words “I thirst” remind me that He - the most satiating, life-giving, Living Water - also thirsted. What did he thirst for, hanging there on the cross? In the midst of excruciating pain, I find it hard to believe those words were merely asking for a drink. Maybe He spoke those words for me so that I would remember that my Savior also felt pain and grief. And that He knows my thirst and weeps with me in the midst of mine.
Amy is on a quest for beauty and tries to find it everywhere, even in hard things. She currently serves as Director of Children’s Ministries at Church of the Apostles in Connecticut. She is also a part-time writer/artist and has published two children’s books. She loves reading, making art, taking walks in the woods, low-tide at the beach, October, and crawling into clean sheets at night. She is an enneagram 4 and everything that entails. She has been married to Ryan for 16 years and their children are Audrey (11) and David (8). Her portfolio and blog are at amybarkerwillers.com.
The Fifth Word: I thirst.
Read
As the deer longs for the waterbrooks, so longs my soul for you, O God. My soul is athirst for God, athirst for the living God; when shall I come to appear before the presence of God?
While my bones are being broken, my enemies mock me to my face; All day long they mock me and say to me, “Where now is your God?” [Psalm 42:1-2, 10]
Reproach has broken my heart, and it cannot be healed; I looked for sympathy, but there was none, for comforters but I could find no one.. They gave me gall to eat, and when I was thirsty, they gave me vinegar to drink. [Psalm 69:20-21]
After this Jesus, knowing that all was now accomplished, to fulfill the scripture said, “I thirst.” [John 19:28]
Pray
O Lord, we thank you for what you suffered on the cross. Thank you for lowering yourself to the weakness of something as human as the parched lips of a dying man. We don’t fully understand how it works, your submission to the Father in this cup of suffering, but we know that our entire lives depended on it. Thank you for enduring the cross.
Dear Lord, in your words and in Amy’s words “I thirst” we hear the cries of our own hearts. We too are thirsty, Lord. Too many times, we’ve made our needs known and have been given sour wine instead of life-giving water. We long for every soured season of our lives to be redeemed and mean something good in our lives - including our relationship with you, our good Father. We need to be refreshed by your living water. We yearn for your Spirit to fill us once again with the hope that all shall be well.
We are thirsty, Lord, for you.
We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. If we have died with him, we shall also live with him; if we endure, we shall also reign with him. We adore you, O Christ, and we bless you because by your holy Cross you have redeemed the world. Amen.
Listen
Listen to Last Words - a playlist for our Holy Week Vigil
Give
For your donation of $25 or more, Michelle Van Loon will send you (or the person of your choice - U.S. addresses only) an autographed copy of her new book, Translating Your Past: Finding Meaning in Family Ancestry, Genetic Clues, and Generational Trauma.
Any funds Michelle raises through this initiative will be divided between these two organizations who are both doing important work right this moment on the ground in the region.
If you would like to donate $25 or more and receive a signed copy of Translating Your Past as a thank you, click here to email Michelle with the name and mailing address of the person to whom you’d like her to send the book. In turn, she’ll send you her PayPal and/or Venmo information so you can send her your donation.
Click through the images below for more details.
