Today’s reading comes from Alexander Stuart Baillie and is an excerpt from his work The Seven Last Words. In this portion Baillie centers in on Jesus’ cry of thirst from the cross. He demonstrates how humanity desires earthly status, wealth, and thrill while often the neglecting our greatest thirst.
He simply states that we need God. Baillie then pivots to say that when the individual begins to seek satisfaction of this greatest need that our lives are open and become less about us and more about others. This is the transformation that happens when we give ourselves over to the one who gave up Himself for us. Still our thirst is not for others our ultimate thirst is for Christ to be fully formed in us this is real life. From Baillie:
Humanity needs to get away from the world of “things as they are” into the world of “things as they ought to be.” This means that men and women must learn to live for others. It is only when we can live a life of self-forgetfulness that we get our truest joy out of life…. He cannot be satisfied until he attains unto the stature of Jesus, unto a perfect man, and ever thirsts for God.
I confess that sometimes I am satisfied with fleeting joy and temporary happiness. Yet that satisfaction is temporary and I thirst again and again. Christ’s thirst was quenched by the soldiers, for a moment. His truest satisfaction came with fulfillment of purpose and oneness with the Father. Giving of ourselves over to the giver of life who gave His life that all might truly live is where we find “our truest joy.”