If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me

 

 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.  Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"  But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!  You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."  

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.  For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.  For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works.  Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."

 

- Matthew 16:21-28 

 

Yesterday we read that when Jesus came into the region of Caesarea Philippi, He asked His disciples, saying, "Who do men say that I, the Son of Man, am?"  So they said, "Some say John the Baptist, some Elijah, and others Jeremiah or one of the prophets."  He said to them, "But who do you say that I am?"  Simon Peter answered and said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  Jesus answered and said, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jonah, for flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but My Father who is in heaven.  And I also say to you that you are Peter, and on this rock I will build My church, and the gates of Hades shall not prevail against it.  And I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven."  Then He commanded His disciples that they should tell no one that He was Jesus the Christ. 

 From that time Jesus began to show to His disciples that He must go to Jerusalem, and suffer many things from the elders and chief priests and scribes, and be killed, and be raised the third day.  Then Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him, saying, "Far be it from You, Lord; this shall not happen to You!"  But He turned and said to Peter, "Get behind Me, Satan!  You are an offense to Me, for you are not mindful of the things of God, but the things of men."  In yesterday's reading (that is, the verses just prior to these), we read St. Peter's confession.  He said, "You are the Christ, the Son of the living God."  But just afterward, Christ goes on here to reveal the true nature of His messiahship.  At its center is the mystery of Christ's Passion.  My study Bible comments that it was expected that the Messiah would reign forever, so the idea that Christ would die was perplexing to Peter and remained scandalous to the Jews even after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 1:23).  It adds that here, as Jesus indicates, Peter unwittingly speaks for Satan, as the devil did not want Christ to fulfill His mission and save humankind through suffering and death.  

Then Jesus said to His disciples, "If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me."  The cross was a dreaded instrument of Roman punishment.  But it is also a symbol of suffering by Christians in imitation of Christ.  My study Bible says that we practice self-denial for the sake of the love of God and the gospel.  To accept this is not a punishment, nor an end in itself.  It is rather a means to overcome the fallen world for the sake of the Kingdom, and to crucify the flesh with its passions and desires (Galatians 5:24).  

"For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."  My study Bible comments that the central paradox of Christian living is that in grasping for temporal things, we lose the eternal -- but in sacrificing everything in this world, we gain eternal riches that are unimaginable (1 Corinthians 2:9). 

 

"For what profit is it to a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul?  Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?  For the Son of Man will come in the glory of His Father with His angels, and then He will reward each according to his works."    The questions Christ asks here emphasize the foolishness of accumulating worldly wealth or power at the expense of the soul -- accumulation of wealth or power cannot redeem a fallen soul nor benefit one in the life to come.

 

 "Assuredly, I say to you, there are some standing here who shall not taste death till they see the Son of Man coming in His kingdom."  My study Bible calls this a reference to those who would witness the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9), as well as those in every generation who will experience the presence of God's Kingdom. 

What does it mean to make sacrifices?  The nature of Christ's sacrifice on the Cross is often seen as a kind of payment -- as if to say that somehow it all adds up because He "pays" in blood what we've neglected in life.  But in the history of the Church, this is actually a rather recent development and was not the understanding throughout most of its history.  For the Eastern churches, Christ's sacrifice in willingly going to His human death and His Crucifixion meant the transfiguration and defeat of death itself for humankind.  What Christ touches becomes transformed, even in the same sense that touching the hem of His garment creating healing for people.  In the case of the Cross, the instrument of cruelty and deep suffering to death became -- through Christ's transfiguring power -- became the instrument of salvation and eternal life for human beings.  That is, for that "life more abundantly" that He preached to us (John 10:10).  For in undergoing human death, the Son of God made possible our own resurrection that we might join to His, that He will raise us up at the last day (John 3:14-16; 6:44).  The Cross (Christ's Passion, death, and Resurrection) was the final great sign of His ministry, which He called the "sign of Jonah" in a recent reading.  But it was not Christ's only sacrifice made for us, for His ministry to us.  He said of Himself that the Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head -- and the deprivations, conflicts, persecution and difficulties (even including knowing He might lose His followers through their own difficulties in this mission of following Him) all accompanied His mission to us.  In effect, Jesus gives us an exchange of one kind of life for another, one "worldly" world for His Kingdom, which dwells among us (Luke 17:20-21).  He also calls upon us to follow Him, and to carry our own crosses.  He doesn't do all of this work Himself, He commands His followers to do the same.  As He is the Son, He is the One within whom originates all the power to do so, and who has the authority even to defeat death for us.  But He asks us to do our own work of transfiguration, of taking what we find that is broken in our own lives and transfiguring that through faith.  We give up what is, in effect, "dead" in our lives, in exchange for the life -- even life abundantly -- that He offers.  This is one sense of what forgiveness is; we exchange something hard, sad, hurtful for God's way of dealing with our circumstances and those who've harmed us.  Every exchange asks for a sacrifice of some kind.  Christ gave His very life for us, and even underwent the suffering of the Cross for us, the experience of human death.  We might be asked to give up our old ways of looking at things, or cherished relationships that are actually bad for us, or something to which we cling, in order to more fully embrace that Kingdom among us and within us, and help to bear it into the world, following Him.  Let us remember His command, for we are surely all included in this if we're to be His disciples and followers.