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2022-08-04 02:02:21
August 5, 2022
How to follow Jesus(Mt 16:24-28)
Sr. MARY JOSEPH OP
Posted by Sr.Sabina Hla Yee Win, ISR
How should we follow Jesus? It is the subject of today's gospel and a task given to all of us throughout our lives. Jesus tells us that we must deny ourselves and take up our cross and follow Him.
Self-denial does not simply mean here a restraint of one's own interests and desires. ‘Denial’ in the New Testament means the intentional disassociation from the relationship with a particular person. For example, the same verb is used when Peter “denies” Jesus. He denies that he knows Jesus or has any relationship with him. Self-denial, then, is intentional stepping away from the relationship with the self as primary. Jesus is not mentioning whether the self is bad, but about who we are most closely related with. Who is our primary fidelity to – Him or ourselves? When we love, everything is centered on the person we love. That is why our lives shift from being self-centered to being loved ones-centered.
Denying oneself is the opposite of denying Jesus. It means not to forsake Jesus, but instead, to forsake my way and follow Jesus. To follow Jesus is to adopt the way of his life. It includes the challenge of oppression and the resistance to injustice. When we fail to deny ourselves, we deny the Lord. Just as Peter, who had heard the Gospel of today directly from Jesus, could not deny himself in the end and denied the Lord.
Then Jesus asks us to take up our cross. He made this statement before he was crucified. Crucifixion was reserved specifically for offenders who had rebelled against Roman authority at that time. “Taking up one’s cross” referred to forcing a condemned person to carry the cross beam to his execution site. This showed that the condemned person now wholly surrendered, and the last deed of his life would be to carry the tool to bring his own death. the Roman crucifixion was just to show this complete submission to the people. A call to carry our cross is, therefore, a call to complete submission. It means being faithful to Christ to the deepest depths of our being.
Although, what is the most common problem for us as followers of the Lord? In the verse just before today's gospel, the Lord points it out to Peter; "you are thinking not as God does, but as human beings do.” (Mt 16: 23) We say we follow the Lord, but often think of something else. We say we believe in the Lord, but often have a different opinion and pursue a different way from him. It is an attitude far from the invitation of Jesus to take up our cross and follow him.
When we firmly establish a Christ-centered mindset and attitude toward life within us, the confusion, fear, and anxiety of life will disappear. This is because we chose to live in complete surrender by accepting the Christ of life and hope as the master of our life. Then we, too, will be able to say like St. Paul; “I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me.” (Ga l2: l9-20)
