The Son of Man must suffer greatly and be rejected
by the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes,
and be killed and on the third day be raised.
Those who heard him at the time did not understand because what he told them didn't fit into any pattern they understood. It was opposed to their usual ways of thinking. We fail to understand because we have heard it so many times that we have a difficult time realizing how utterly unexpected, unique, and terrifying was the prospect of the death of the Messiah. We sit at a safe and sanitized distance of two millennia from the events Jesus predicted. For us, the crucifix has become a static piece of art on our walls and our rosaries. It does not usually move us to wonder or ask why Jesus would go to such great lengths. Sadly, it does not often inspire us to love him.
If anyone wishes to come after me, he must deny himself
and take up his cross daily and follow me.
It must be that we have such difficulty following Jesus and taking up our own crosses precisely because we lack a sense of what he did for us. If we really knew the love that he poured out for us in his own blood how could we help but follow him, even at great cost to ourselves?
he must deny himself
Is the cross a fundamental denial of what makes what makes us unique individual members of the human race? Is it, as it may seem to be, a denial of the value of life in this world? We must answer, 'No'. It is a denial of the old sinful unrepentant self. But it is an affirmation of the new self, the new creation we become when we are baptized. It is death to sin and vice. But it is an affirmation of the life of the Spirit and the fruits the Spirit makes us able to bear.
The cross was not, however, just one good among many. It represented the primacy of God in our lives. It meant that they only way to truly save our lives or gain anything was by putting God before everything. It was a clarification of what Moses had already said:
If you obey the commandments of the LORD, your God,
which I enjoin on you today,
loving him, and walking in his ways,
and keeping his commandments, statutes and decrees,
you will live and grow numerous,
and the LORD, your God,
will bless you in the land you are entering to occupy.
Obeying God would sometimes mean choosing his ways when would prefer to do otherwise. This was always a death to self, at least a little one. But it was not so because God desired us to suffer. Rather it was because he couldn't bear to see us settle for less than himself, the fullness of all he could give. It didn't mean losing one's personality and becoming some sort of Christian automaton. But it did mean that nothing could be as core to our identity as God, which is the same as saying that nothing could be more important to us than love. However we define ourselves, and whatever makes us unique, must still take a backseat to love. But surprisingly, when it does, we discover that we become more fully ourselves, all that we were meant to be. It is life in this sense, filled with love, and therefore with himself, that he desires for us.
Choose life, then,
that you and your descendants may live
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