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?

 

 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 to him, "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."  My study Bible points out that after Peter's confession, Jesus here reveals the true nature of His messiahship:  the mystery of His Passion.  It explains that expectations were that the Messiah would live forever, so the notion that Christ would die was perplexing to Peter, and it would remain scandalous to the Jews even after the Resurrection (1 Corinthians 1:23).  Here Peter unwittingly speaks for Satan, for 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 most dreaded instrument of Roman punishment, but, as my study Bible puts it, it is also a symbol of suffering by Christians in imitation of Christ.  We therefore practice self-denial for the sake of the love of God and the gospel.  To accept this type of suffering is not punishment, and neither is it an end of 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 calls it the central paradox of Christian living:  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."  Christ's questions regarding the soul emphasize the total foolishness of accumulating worldly wealth or power for its own sake -- none of this can redeem a fallen soul, nor benefit a person 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 says this is a reference to those who would witness the Transfiguration (Matthew 17:1-9; in tomorrow's reading), as well as those in every generation who will experience the presence of God's Kingdom.

In today's reading there is a deep and repeated concern with exchange.  Christ asks, "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?"  Here Christ gives us a statement of exchange:  "For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it."  There is the attempt to save which results in loss of life; and the willingness to lose which results in finding.  But Jesus juxtaposes the things that make up this exchange in His first response to Peter's remark that He should avoid the Cross:  "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."  There are the things of God and the things of men.  Moreover, Peter's remark has the tinge of Satan, who does not desire Christ's salvific sacrifice and mission.  So there is the question posed to us:  what do we exchange for this heavenly reality, this grace that comes and permeates life so that we, also, may be participating in the kingdom of heaven?  What is the exchange that redeems the soul, that gives it values and meaning so that we enter into a movement of deepening closeness to God, and one which can stand us in good stead at that time of Christ's reward of each according to his works?  Of course, we have the image of Christ on the Cross so strongly in our minds and consciousness; this was the ultimate sacrifice for us all, so that each of us may be redeemed into this Kingdom to be with Him.  But what are we asked to give and to exchange?  We participate with Him on the Cross also, as He indicates when He says that we each must take up our own cross.  If we think about it, there is practically nothing in this world which we know of that can be gained without sacrifice.  If your dream is of owning a home, then one must give one's time to work for that.  Even theft, while always a sin, requires some effort (and unrepented sin may result in the loss or sacrifice of one's soul, opening ourselves up to Christ's question -- what is worth that?).  But if we tell ourselves no sacrifice is necessary in life for any reason, then we fool ourselves entirely.  Even the lives of the indigent are filled with burdens of simply trying to survive.  In this context of understanding and accepting that sacrifice is simply a part of life on any level, let us revisit Christ's words and accept them as promising something much, much more infinitely valuable than anything we can know which is purely "worldly."  That is not to deny that all of creation is of God and is therefore good, but rather it is to say that without God, without the saving nature of grace, creation falls into a state of something without its intrinsic beauty and timeless value that is offered to us therein.  We won't see it, we won't find it for ourselves and our souls.  There's an interesting concept in the letters of St Paul.  In two places St. Paul advises his flock to "redeem the time."  This is another emphasis on exchange, and we'd do well to pay attention.  In the letter to the Colossians, St. Paul writes, "Walk in wisdom toward those who are outside, redeeming the time. Let your speech always be with grace, seasoned with salt, that you may know how you ought to answer each one" (Colossians 4:5-6).  In his letter to the Ephesians, St. Paul says something similar:  "See then that you walk circumspectly, not as fools but as wise, redeeming the time, because the days are evil" (Ephesians 5:15-16).  A redemption is an exchange; to redeem is to gain something by some form of payment, but it has the added sense of repurchase, gaining value that was otherwise lost, salvation.  In these references to redeeming the time, St. Paul speaks of the great gift of our lives, our time which is given to us by God, with which we may redeem the world through our choices of exchange.  We may use our time to walk in wisdom, and thereby to continually give glory to God, effectively exchanging our worldly time for securing the things of God in the world, God's grace that may be at work in us even through the smallest things.  If the "days are evil," as St. Paul writes, then we may "walk circumspectly, not as fools but wise" and thereby redeem the time.  These small statements are mighty powerful in their allusion to the idea that we may redeem the substance of our lives and the lives of others through how we use our time, how we walk in the world.  They are compact illustrations of what it means to exchange a worldly set of purposes for God's purposes and make them effective even in redeeming the world, redeeming the time of our lives and even of others' lives whom we touch.  In the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus teaches, "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven" (Matthew 5:16).  This is St. Paul's redemption of the time, a way to exchange the things of men for the things of God.  It is the way to live Christ's teaching to take up our own crosses, and sacrifice one for the other, redeeming the time of our lives which is inseparable from our place in the world and all that is in it.  On the passage I've cited from Ephesians, my study Bible comments, "The goal is not to abandon the world, but to keep oneself in Christ and salvage as much as possible from the evil world.  Christians renounce the fallenness of the world [my italics], not creation itself."  Let us follow Christ in sacrificing fallenness for the things of God, and redeem the time.  Let us consider carefully that sacrifice will be asked of us no matter what, by that which seeks to enslave and give death, and by the One who comes to make us free and give us life (John 8:31-36).  Which is your preference?