Bearing the Cross

A Sermon for the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross

Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me (Mk 8:34)

This Sunday, called in the Church’s order the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, the Church’s rule appoints the reading of the Gospel about self-denial and cross-bearing, which the Gospel requires of everyone who wishes to follow Christ[1]. And so, let us speak about this now, to the glory of Christ and for our enlightenment and salvation.

Whoever wants to go after Me, — the Lord says — let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me. The Lord forces no one to go after Him, but leaves it to the good will of each person—whether to follow Him or not to follow Him; whether to live for Him, for righteousness and holiness, for an everlasting reign together with Him—or—for oneself, for the flesh, for the gratifying of one’s passions, for the adulterous and sinful world and—for the devil, and for everlasting shame and torment. The Lord leaves our free will untouched; for He wants us to love Him of our own accord, out of the heart’s conviction, to keep His commandments and to turn away from senseless, ruinous passions—and not like slaves, under compulsion and constraint. But how could we not follow You, sweetest Jesus, our eternal Life, our breath, our Light, our Joy and our blessedness! Whoever follows You without ever turning back has even here a foretaste of the blessedness of heaven, and will unfailingly inherit eternal blessedness with You. This is an unchangeable, all-joyful truth that, so to speak, strikes everyone’s eyes with its self-evidence.

So with joy after Christ followed the apostles, the martyrs, the venerable ones, the righteous, and all the saints of ancient and modern times; they gladly sacrificed for the Lord all the goods of the world, their very lives – and they did not err in their trust, were not deceived in their hope, but inherited an unshakable, eternal kingdom. Why, then, does the greater part of men not follow Christ? Out of unbelief or little faith; out of attachment to temporal life and its swiftly passing goods; out of pride and boasting in worldly education, not enlightened by grace; because of the impurity of the passionate heart and the settled inclination of the will toward the pursuit of only earthly aims; because of spiritual ignorance; because of the undeveloped taste for spiritual goods, which require preparation, the exercise of the mind and heart in spiritual subjects, such as: prayer, godly meditation, the reading of the word of God, works of Christian love and mercy, and the training of the flesh in abstinence. But of what does a man deprive himself – of what wondrous goods, what peace, what spiritual sweetness, what spiritual light, what blessedness – when he does not follow Christ, but follows only his own sinful desires, habits, passions, and inclinations? What in the world can take the place of Christ, the immortal Life? Nothing. No treasures whatsoever, no pleasures or delights. Deny yourself, – the Lord goes on to say, –and take up your cross and follow Me. To deny yourself means to deny your sinful will, your vicious inclinations, impulses, and passions – in a word, every sin that lives in you, that acts in you, that binds you, darkens you, defiles you, debases and dishonors you, that hinders you from following Christ to heaven – from striving toward true repentance, pure virtue, and Christian perfection – and makes you a slave of corruption and death: a sin that perverts your nature, created in God’s likeness in righteousness and holiness – that prepares for you eternal separation from God and eternal torment.

Yes, brothers and sisters! We must absolutely deny ourselves. If we look into ourselves impartially and with a pure conscience—into our conscience, our heart, our deeds, our idleness, and our whole vain life—we will at once find that for the most part what we think, desire, speak, and do is not what is essentially necessary for us; not according to the intention and will of our all-good and all-wise Creator and Lord, but what is contrary to His intentions, by our own perverted, corrupt will. Look carefully into your own heart. What occupies it? What does it love? What is it drawn toward? Is it toward its Creator, toward good, toward righteousness and holiness, toward true well-being and blessedness, toward mutual love and help? No. Hearts are occupied for the most part with themselves, permeated with selfishness. How many passions there are in one heart! How many sources of death! Every passion is a source of death: for each of them can kill a man forever, if he does not repent and change and cast it off. So then, man, deny yourself. But this is hard; the passions have become your second nature. What is to be done! The cutting off of the members of the body, too, is very painful; but when it is necessary, they give up hand and foot to be cut off, and even an eye to be torn out. The same must be done with your passions: If your right hand leads you into sin, cut it off and cast it away from you[2], that is, not the hand of the body, but the passion, which in your soul has become as it were your hand, that is, as it were a natural member of yours; this will be painful for you, as it were a crucifixion on a cross; but it is saving, and it will lead you to eternal life; you will be delivered from the all-destroying poison—sin—from the power of the devil, from the fire of hell. Take up your cross and follow Christ; that is, fulfill His will, His commandments, His statutes, His counsels. And soldiers at war follow firmly the instructions of their commander in order to win the victory—and they win; you too will win, if you follow your own almighty Leader—Christ. For whoever wants to save his soul, says the Lord, will lose it. What does it mean here to save your soul? It means not to touch the passions of the soul, to leave them in peace, to let them live and grow strong and take possession of our mind, our heart, and our will—in a word, our soul and our body; to live unrepentant, giving no thought to death and to the eternal judgment. To save yourself in this way means to destroy your soul eternally, to lose it.

It must be noted that the Lord, in saying this, had in mind chiefly the time of persecutions for faith in Him and instances of confessing His name before His persecutors: for there were some among the Christians, even such, who in order to preserve their temporal life, riches, and honors renounced Christ and the Christian faith and thereby lost their soul, perishing through their renunciation, through their attachment to earthly goods. But even now there are many who, loving the temporal life and its goods and the life of the flesh excessively, refuse to follow Christ and to fulfill His commandments; they live contrary to the duties of their calling and do not repent of it—and in this way they lose their soul for eternity. And whoever loses his soul for My sake and for the Gospel’s, the Lord says in today’s Gospel, will save it. Here again the cases of the martyrs are meant chiefly, who for Christ, for preserving faith in Him and love for Him, voluntarily gave up their property, their ranks, their kindred, and their very life, and in this way saved their life for eternity, for Christ and His eternal kingdom. For what benefit is it to a man if he gains the whole world but harms his own soul? Or what ransom will a man give for his soul? This is said to explain the preceding thought, that is, that it is better to lose all riches, honors, kindred, and life itself in the flesh than to destroy one’s soul forever through renouncing God for the sake of preserving a temporal life and temporal advantages, which will soon abandon us.

The soul is incomparably more precious than the whole world, as created in the image of God and destined for immortality, and nothing can ransom it from eternal torments if here we do not ransom it by faith in the merits of the Redeemer, in His redeeming blood, by a courageous confession of His name, and by a good life. For whoever is ashamed of Me and of My words, — says the Lord, — in this adulterous and sinful generation, the Son of Man also will be ashamed of him, when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels. Here we are told of the need for boldness, that is, for daring and courage, in confessing Christ, the Son of God; of not sparing one’s life for Christ; and of following His will; for if anyone here considers it a shame to follow Him and keep His commandments, or is ashamed to follow the statutes of His Church, in order to please the world, the flesh and the devil, the Son of God also will not acknowledge him as His own at His second coming, on His Dread Judgment. A fearsome word, brethren and sisters! Let us cast aside, then, false shame and slothfulness toward piety, toward attending the divine services, and laziness in reading the word of God and meditating on it; let us deny ourselves, cast aside the pleasing of the many-passioned flesh, of the world that lies in evil, and of its ruler, the devil; let us take up our cross and follow Christ, the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world, our King and Lord, who has prepared a kingdom for us in heaven from the beginning of the world. Amen.