| Today the solemn feast of the Exaltation of the Precious and Life-Giving Cross draws to a close. From Great Vespers last Saturday evening, through the Divine Liturgy of the feast when the Cross was raised on high, to this morning’s conclusion – at the center of this week has been the enigma of the Crucified God, the wonder of our salvation, the re-establishment of Paradise and the gateway to resurrected life unending. The Cross was our second chance, and for that reason we echo the ancient liturgical hymn: “Hail, O Cross of Christ, hail our one hope, hail salvation of the world and our glory!” (St. Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem)
The Gospel passage for this Sunday (Mark 8:34-38; 9:1) reminds us that the preaching of Jesus includes “hard sayings” – sayings that confront us, disturb us, face us with the truth that there are times when we “miss the mark”, fall short, forget that we are disciples of the Crucified One. There are times when we, like all the Apostles, except John the Beloved, turn away, we run, or we avoid the Cross. The hard sayings of the Lord force us to realize that all too often we would rather live a “Christianity-lite” rather than live the demands of the Cross’ Victim: surrender, selflessness, and humility. The late theologian H. Richard Niebuhr criticized such an emaciated Christianity as pure fantasy: “Imagine, a God without expectations brought men without sin into a kingdom without judgment through the ministry of a Christ without a cross.” The hard sayings of Jesus underscore one important lesson – the Cross of Christ makes real demands of us. In last week’s Gospel we learned that God loved us so much that he sent his only Son to save us. Today we learn that to follow Jesus we must deny ourselves. There is the work of the soul to be done. Jesus makes it clear that self-denial is the path of transformation (metanoia) and transformation is the road to spiritual wholeness and holiness: “The Lord said: “If anyone wishes to 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) What does Jesus mean? The spiritual writer and clinical therapist, Fr. Michael Makoul, observes that “the Lord means the Cross is our call to concretely change how we think, what we say, and how we act. He means that you and I must take up the cross of becoming different, however uncomfortable, inconvenient, or painful it is. He means that embracing discipleship is enduring our own suffering and feeling the pains of a new birth come upon us.” To be a true disciple of Jesus means this kind of transformation — not in theory or abstraction – but concretely. Not on a part-time basis, but giving ourselves full-time to the call of the Lord to walk the Way, the Truth, and the Life. In the words of an old sermon nugget: “without the Way there is no going, without the Truth there is no knowing, without the Life there is no growing.” Without spiritual change and growth, our soul gradually withers into a cold numbness and we risk living a Christ-less life! Our heart will never be at peace. What is it that we can do to “deny” ourselves as Jesus directs in today’s Gospel? St. Paul gives us big clue. He writes about the struggle taking place within us. “For the good that I will to do, I do not do; but the evil that I will not to do, that I do. Now if I do what I will not to do, it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells in me. I find then a law, that evil is present with me, the one who wills to do good. For I delight in the law of God according to the inward man.” (Romans 7) So, there is an “inward man” struggling with the sin that has come to dwell within. The “inward man” is the image of God. This image is the definition of what it is to be human. Only human beings out of all creation have been made in God’s image. The image is what in us yearns to do what is good. The image is what St. Paul refers to as the “law” in him. What is this sin against which we struggle within us? This source of the Pauline unseen warfare? What is it exactly that the Cross of Jesus calls us to “deny”? Archmandrite Dionysios, the revered Elder from Stavronikita Monastery on Mt. Athos, expresses it plainly: “The real enemy is the ego. It is such a powerful enemy because it is the enemy within us.” What is the ego? It is what most of us refer to as “our selves.” It is the thing within us that works against the good, especially against love and trust. It is, we think, our defense mechanism. We hide behind it. The pious Elder goes on to say “Ego is born when we don’t trust others. When we are afraid of others…When we see ourselves as over others. When we trust each other there is no need for ego.” Ego is the image of superiority we project when we feel insecure and vulnerable before God. This is what Jesus and His Cross summon us to deny! This is what can be at the root of the spiritual unrest within us – the unbridled ego. The ego claims independence from God and therefore leads us to destruction. Lucifer made the claim that he did not need God and he fell from heaven. Adam and Eve decided to seek deification without God, and were exiled from Paradise. The reason we are not at peace is that we have lost sight of the image of God within us. We have exiled ourselves from the kingdom of righteousness by asserting our egotistical inclinations. Rather than live in surrender to Christ, form our daily lives as His disciples, peel away those false images of who we think we are – we strike out on our own projecting an image that is far from Godly. It is this projection that the Cross calls us to deny and, instead, to embrace lives of surrender, selflessness, and genuine Christian humility. In referring to today’s Gospel passage, Greek Archbishop Job of Telmessos reminds us: “If the ego is in control, then every gift God offers will be rejected because the ego claims it is self-sufficient. You see, self-denial is absolutely essential if we want to be open to the blessings of God.” Such denial will, undoubtedly, feel like the greatest cross we bear because it is counter-intuitive, goes against the impulses of our nature, makes us uncomfortable. That discomfort pales in comparison to the suffering of the Crucified God who took on His shoulders the entirety of our sins, transforming them into life-giving grace. Out of darkness comes the Light. Out of death comes Life. Out of the sinking feeling of hopelessness comes the bright promise of life lived forever with and in the Great Lover of us all! What can we do to live a life of Christian denial? To reject our self-seeking ego? Repent completely and leave no stone unturned. Be honest in all that you do. The ego is the progenitor of lies. Care for your soul everyday. Take the time. Learn to love silence and minister with compassion to your own heart. Then you will have compassion to share with others. Learn how to pay attention to what is happening under your skin: thoughts, emotions and feelings. If you take the time to examine them, then you will find you actually do have the power to choose what among them is helpful and what is not. This is what St. John Chrysostom meant when he said that “to be a fool for Christ means to control one’s thoughts.” Remember death. The ego struggles against the very idea of death. Remember that everything is temporal; everything changes inside and outside of us. The ego is a survivalist holding on to the lie that it is immortal. But the ego knows this is not true and so ego is always anxious and frightened, holding tightly to an impossible dream. Remembering death makes things real and disarms the ego. Another practice is to keep awake in every moment to what is before you. Don’t allow your mind to wander into the past or future. Do everything you do with complete focus. Care for one another. This is the greatest commandment and the most effective weapon against the enemy, for the ego is opposed to love. I pray that every one of you take up these weapons of the Spirit to fight the “unseen warfare” within you as you subdue your ego, throw your arms around the Cross of the Crucified One, and there experience a “love Divine, all other loves excelling.” May God give you the courage to do this and may you be filled with that Divine Love! Faithfully in the Lord, |
