12th Sunday in Ordinary Time
Cycle C
This morning we hear once again Jesus’ admonition
that if we are to be his disciples we must take up our cross daily and follow
him. And the idea we have of taking up our crosses is a very negative one. We
relate it with great suffering. A cross is something we have to endure, something
that won’t go away, like a debilitating illness or a bad relationship. We know what
Jesus’ cross was, a necessary evil, but something he had to go through in order
to be glorified in the resurrection. So, being a Christian is to suffer.
Is Jesus saying that only martyrs can be his
disciples? Is suffering what defines being a Christian? Actually, Christianity
is all about life, not death. Jesus doesn’t want us to suffer. If he wanted
people to suffer, why did he cure so many of them? If He wanted us to die, why did
he redeem us? Jesus himself didn’t want to suffer, either. But the reality is
that we do and he did.
Jesus’ Way of the Cross didn’t start on Good Friday.
He took up his cross much, much earlier, and his journey to fulfill his destiny
began much, much earlier. Jesus carried his cross every day of his life. We
read the gospels and can get the idea that Jesus’ only suffering occurred in
that single day from the agony in the garden until his death on the cross. We
don’t often think about what his everyday life was like. Jesus suffered all the
same little things we all do every day in the cause of doing God’s will.
What do you think it was like growing up in the
small village of Nazareth, where all your neighbors knew that your mother was
pregnant before she was married to your father? His own neighbors tried to
throw him off a cliff once, and a couple of times people tried to stone him.
His mother and family actually thought he was crazy. And how many days did he
sweat under the blazing sun as he taught and healed the crowds, and how many nights
did he spend shivering under the cold, open sky because he had no home to lay
his head? How much gossip at the hands of the Pharisees did he have to endure? Even
his closest friends misunderstood him.
The way Jesus chose to travel through life was
never easy. His destiny was not to live an easy life and his purpose was not to
live well but to die. We were created to live, Jesus was born to die.
And so, Jesus was not telling the disciples they were
required to take up that heavy wooden device of torture, drag it and themselves
through the streets of Jerusalem up to the top of a hill and be nailed to it.
He was telling them that if they were to be true disciples they had to emulate
the master in everything. That meant that every day they were to travel the Via
Dolorosa of everyday life. They were to endure all the small sufferings and
enjoy all the little triumphs that punctuated their lives and still keep their
eyes on the goal. And the attitude they were to have is one of submission to
the will of God and small denials of their own wills.
When Jesus told them they must deny themselves he
didn’t mean they had to completely lose their identities and become something
they were not. It was not that they had to give up everything pleasurable in their
lives, either. It was the opposite. Jesus is the ultimate expression of
self-denial. His nature as the Word of God is divine, yet he denied himself and
became man. St. Paul says that even though Jesus was in the form of God, he did
not consider that something to be grasped at. Instead, he emptied himself,
taking the form of a slave. He didn’t have to, he wanted to. Jesus denied
himself and became us. And he didn’t think he was giving up anything; he was gaining
something.
On the other hand, when we deny ourselves we become
like him. We don’t know what it means to deny ourselves anything, do we? We are
into immediate gratification. I not only don’t deny myself, I glorify myself.
It is a culture of me, me, me. I am the center of the universe. I am the master
of my destiny. I am the self made man. The purpose of my struggles and
suffering is to eliminate my struggles and suffering. I do not have to deny
myself anything. How difficult it is for us to understand this passage. As
usual, what we see as loss is actually gain, and what we see as gain is
actually loss.
What Jesus is calling us to deny is the part of ourselves
that keeps us from him. He is calling us to deny ourselves all the passions and
things that keep us from becoming truly human, truly free, and truly God-like. All
the things that we think will make us happy are the very things that deny us
happiness. Jesus was not asking the disciples to give up anything, he was
telling them what they could and should become. We are to take our eyes off
ourselves and keep them on others. Just like he did. We are to give everything
we are in order for others to find God. Just like he did. We are to humbly travel with him every day
towards a fuller understanding and relationship with the Father. We are to
become Jesus for the world.
And just like Jesus, our Ways of the Cross are
filled with triumphs and defeats. Sometimes we are heavily burdened, sometimes
someone takes up our cross for us and helps us along. We often fall and are
bruised, but we find the strength to get up and journey on. We meet people
along the way, some who spit on us and mock us and try to keep us down, and
others who offer us some small act of kindness and compassion. And through it
all we keep our eyes focused on Calvary. Jesus saw that hill as the culmination
of his purpose. He knew it meant death for him but life for us. We see Calvary
not as a place of our suffering but of our redemption.
We feel pain and sorrow whenever we think about what
Jesus went through on that day long ago, and that’s a good thing. It is good
that we are humbled by his sacrifice. It is good to remember the great love he
showed us on that day, because we always have the knowledge of how it all
turned out. We always have Easter.
Being a disciple of Christ is not so difficult. It
does not necessarily require martyrdom or torture. It just requires the
understanding that our daily lives have purpose; that even our small sufferings
and triumphs are to be offered up in the service of God and our brothers and
sisters. It requires letting go of the incomplete images we have of ourselves
and realizing that we are so much more than the things we possess. Jesus emptied himself to become man. We empty ourselves
to become more than we ever dreamed possible.
Christ became us so that we can become Christ.
