“You are thinking not as God does”
There is a quote from the movie Gettysburg in which one of the characters criticizes his friend by saying, “You certainly do have a talent for trivializing the momentous and complicating the obvious.” “Jesus complicates our life in a way no other person can. He asks us to follow him through a complete identification of our will with his own. This is why following his sharp words to Peter, He told his Apostles: ‘If any man would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and follow me. For whoever would save his life will lose it; and whoever loses his life for my sake and the gospel’s will save it.’(Mark 8:34-35)”. [1]
Why is Jesus demanding more from his followers, “If any man would come after me…”? In the first part of the Gospel reading Jesus is testing their faith, “Who do you say that I am?” Now that Peter has spoken up to the fact that Jesus is the Messiah, He pushes them to deepen their faith. Like the disciples, for us today, it is not enough to just say “Jesus Christ is Lord!” If we truly believe, we must live with him–our lives must be transformed in Him! “The Christian life, lived as it should be lived, with all its demands, is also a cross which one has to carry, following Christ. Jesus’ words, which must have seemed extreme to his listeners, indicate the standard he requires his followers to live up to. He does not ask for short-lived enthusiasm or occasional dedication; he asks everyone to renounce himself, to take up his cross and follow him.” [2]
What causes “short-lived enthusiasm” and “occasional dedication” and why is it bad for us? When we base our faith and life on feelings, we are building on a weak foundation. Feelings are short-lived; they come and go. Neither faith nor life should be based on feelings. The virtue of faith is a strong foundation because it is rooted in the eternal, which by nature is not “short-lived”.
The Church tells us to attend Mass on Sundays and Holy Days, but if we are only occasionally dedicated, we may just go when we “feel like it”. That occasional dedication also can plague our prayer life. Prayer is not to be just fit into our lives, but rather it is our communication with Jesus: the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Saint Cyprian, in his letter to Saint Cornelius, repeats the saying of Saint Paul, “Let us pray without ceasing, you for us, we for you; by the love we share we shall thus relieve the strain of these great trials.” [3] Do we have a passion, a zeal, for prayer and liturgy?
Can we have passion and zeal in the Christian life? We are called to enthusiasm and joy, but the enthusiasm that Christ calls us to is not “short-lived” or shallow. Our life in Christ is life eternal, the opposite of short-lived! The beatitude: “Blessed are they who hunger and thirst for righteousness” (Matt 5:6) is not short-lived. When we hunger and thirst for physical food, the feeling is intense but then subsides. When we hunger and thirst for righteousness, the intensity may be less, but it does not subside, for our hearts are restless until they rest in God. Jesus challenges the disciples to “come after me”, a challenge that invites them to life eternal and a life of enthusiasm.
What does Jesus mean by “whoever wishes to saves his life will lose it”? While it sounds complicated, Jesus makes it extremely easy for us. The only way to live forever is to follow him, and that means that we must die to our self. Here, Jesus uses the word “life” in a double sense: both earthly and eternal life. An earthly death brings about an end to the earthly life, but does not destroy the eternal life of the soul. “Understood in this way, we can grasp the paradoxical meaning of our Lord’s phrase: whoever wishes to save his (earthly) life will lose his (eternal) life. But whoever loses his (earthly) life for me and the Gospel, will save his (eternal) life. Life seen as mere self-centered earthly existence and lived in denial of Christ ends in destruction, but when lived in loyalty to Christ, despite earthly death, it arrives at fullness of life.” [4]
To expound on this idea, in his letter to the Romans, Saint Paul says, “I urge you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God, you spiritual worship.” [5] Saint Paul in uses the word “living” and “sacrifice” together. Saint Paul is challenging us to be “living dead things”, we are dead to sin and self, but alive in Christ.
What does saving one’s (earthly) life mean? As it was said earlier, saving one’s life means to die to one’s selfish desires. “It means living this life as if there were none other – letting oneself be controlled by the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the pride of life” Instead of worrying so much about our earthly life, the “present life should be evaluated in the light of this eternal life: life on earth is not definitive, but transitory and relative; it is a means to be used to achieve definitive life in heaven.” [6]
Search: Temptation
How do we know all of this (losing our life to save it) to be true? We know because Jesus said and did everything He prophesied here. He in fact took up His cross, suffered persecution, and an earthly death. However, because of His obedience, He was raised on the third day and has power not only over souls, but also the power to raise up our earthly lives. . We do not need to wait until our physical death to have our life raised up, though. Jesus elevates our life now. To live in sin is to be less alive since sin is a deprivation of good. Jesus says, “A thief comes only to steal and slaughter and destroy; I came so that they might have life and have it more abundantly.” This abundant life is possible because of Jesus’s death. “In the Passion, the Cross ceased to be a symbol of punishment and became instead a sign of victory. The Cross is the emblem of the Redeemer: in quo est salus, vita et resurrection nostra: there lies our salvation, our life and our resurrection”. [7]
Search: The Cross: Trophy of Victory
How are we to live by losing our lives to Christ? First, we must remember that we are sinners and we can only reach Heaven through Our Lord Jesus Christ. A good prayer to recite often is “Lord, take me as I am, with my defects, with my shortcomings, but make me become as You want me to be” [8] We should think of our lives and how we live them each day—did we dedicate our days’ work, joys, sufferings, trials, or ever minor annoyances to the Lord?
Finally, we should learn to embrace our crosses, our sufferings, and hardships with Christ. We should only unite ourselves to Jesus even stronger and see them not as condemnation, but a chance to win our salvation! “There is a kind of fear around, a fear of the Cross, of our Lord’s Cross. What has happened is that people have begun to regard as crosses all the unpleasant things that crop up in life, and they do not know how to take them as God’s children should, with supernatural outlook. So much so, that they are even removing the roadside crosses set up by our forefathers…!” [9]
[1] Fernandez, In Conversation with God 5, 2.3
[2] Navaree Bible Commentary pg. 124
[3] Spiritual Reading in this packet
[4] NAB Footnotes
[5] Romans 12:1
[6] Navaree Bible Commentary pgs. 125, 124
[7] J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, II, 5
[8] John Paul I, Address, 13 September 1978
[9] J. Escriva, The Way of the Cross, II, 5