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by Fr. George Nicozisin
In today's gospel lection, taken from Mark 8:34, Jesus says: "If anyone
would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross and
follow me." According to accepted English dictionaries, "deny" means to
refuse, reject, repudiate and/or to declare something untrue. If we
limit ourselves to these definitions, we do an injustice to the deeper
meaning of Christian self-denial. For a clearer picture of what Jesus
means, we must return to the original Greek text. The Greek is
"aparnisastho" and it has the meaning of renunciation and absolute
rejection of whatever is incongruous with Jesus' planned salvation for
us.
There
are those of us who have a narrow and limited understanding of
self-denial. We pick and choose at random what we will give up and what
we will do in the name of Christianity. We proceed to label them "Our
little crosses we must bear." "I'll give up movies and/or TV during
lent." Thus we conclude with a list of trivialities that have no
bearing on the "self-denial" Jesus speaks about in our gospel lesson
for today. Christ-like self-denial goes much deeper. It penetrates the
facade which hides our hidden sins, our shortcomings and our faults.
Utter
denial does not mean depriving ourselves of the necessities of life,
nor does it mean we must become paupers and live in rags. Neither does
it mean we must lose our individuality, personality and identity. When
Jesus speaks of total and utter denial of self, He means we must
subordinate our clamoring ego that prohibits us from being the Children
of God we were intended to be. Good intentions are not enough. This is
why Jesus says, "If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself
and take up his cross and follow me."
"Take up your cross and
follow me" means to get started on our journey to salvation. If the
road we are on does not have God's Eternal Kingdom as its destination,
then we had better make a U-turn and find the right one!
"Taking
up our cross and following Jesus" means trying harder when those
moments of calamity, tragedy, sorrow and loss and grief beset us. It
means bringing under control our uncontrollable anger, our undue
insensitivity, our impatience and impetuosity. It means subduing our
temperament and disposition so that we can master them rather than
their mastering us.
There is another reason this gospel passage
is read at the Divine Liturgy of the Third Sunday of Lent. The
Synaxarion, that portion of the Orthros service book which both
announces and describes the observed Feast Day for today, says the
following:
"On this the Third Sunday of Great Lent, we observe
the Veneration of the Precious and Life-giving Cross and for this
reason: Inasmuch as in the forty days of fasting we in a way crucify
ourselves and become bitter, despondent and failing, the Life-giving
Cross is presented to us for spiritual refreshment and assurance, for
remembrance of our Lord's
Passion and for comfort. Like those who
are following a long and tedious path are tired, see a beautiful tree
with many leaves, they would sit in its shade and rest for a while and
then, as if rejuvenated, they will continue their journey. Likewise
today, in the time of fasting and difficult journey and effort, the
Life-giving Cross was planted in its
midst by the Holy Fathers of
the Church to give rest and spiritual refreshment, to make us light and
courageous for the remaining task.
Christ comforts us who are,
as it were, in a desert until He will lead us up to the spiritual
Jerusalem by His Resurrection. Just as the Precious Cross, which is
also called the Tree of Life, was planted in the middle of Paradise, so
our Holy Fathers planted the Cross in the middle of holy and Great
Lent, as a sacred reminder of both Adam's bliss and how he was deprived
of it. Remembering also that by partaking of this Tree of Life, the
Precious and Life-giving Cross, we no longer die but are kept alive."
St.
John Chrysostom, a fourth century Patriarch of Constantinople describes
the Cross this way: "The Cross is the proof of the love of God. The
Cross is the unshaken wall, the unconquered weapon, the Kingdom of
virtue. The Cross has torn asunder our mortgage and rendered useless
the prison of death. The Cross has opened Paradise, it has admitted the
thief and has guided the human race from impending disaster to the
Kingdom of God."
Jesus extends His invitation to us once again
to "deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow Him." Our Church gives
us this Third Sunday of Lent--Mid-point to Golgotha--to pause with
Jesus, to refresh ourselves spiritually, to assess our Lenten journey
and to continue with greater determination. But the initiative is still
ours. There is no way into spring but that we endure the rigors of
winter. There is no way we can arrive to Easter Sunday if we do not
live the agonies of all our Good Fridays. There is no way we can
achieve eternal life with God unless we deny ourselves utterly and
totally in Christ. This we do when we endure and sustain our own
personal crosses and follow Him.
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