A Word for the Sunday After the Exaltation of the Cross and the Fifteenth Sunday After Pentecost

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

On this present Sunday, called in the order of the Church the Sunday after the Exaltation of the Cross, the Church Typikon appoints the reading of the Gospel on self-denial and the bearing of the cross, which the Gospel demands of everyone who wishes to follow Christ. Let us, then, speak of this now, for the glory of Christ and for our own enlightenment and salvation.

«Whoever wants to come after Me,» says the Lord, «let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.» The Lord compels no one to follow Him, but leaves it to each person’s own free will—to follow Him or not to follow Him, to live for Him, for righteousness and holiness, for eternal co-reigning with Him—or to live for oneself, for the flesh, for the gratification of one’s own passions, for the adulterous and sinful world, and for the devil, and for eternal shame and torment. The Lord leaves our free will untouched, for He wishes us to love Him freely, out of the heart’s own conviction, to keep His commandments and to turn away from senseless, ruinous passions—not as slaves, by compulsion and constraint. But how can we not follow You, sweetest Jesus, our eternal Life, our Breath, our Light, our Joy and our Blessedness! Whoever follows You without turning back both tastes heavenly blessedness even here, and will surely inherit eternal blessedness with You. This is an unshakable, all-joyous truth, one that leaps out, so to speak, before the eyes of anyone, by its own evidence.

So it was: the apostles, martyrs, righteous ones, and all the saints of ancient and recent times followed Christ with joy, willingly sacrificed for the Lord’s sake every good of this world, even their very lives—and were not mistaken in their trust, were not deceived in their hope, but inherited an unshakable, eternal kingdom. Why, then, do most people not follow Christ? From unbelief or little faith; from attachment to this temporal life and its swiftly passing goods; from pride and vanity over worldly learning, when it is not illumined by grace; from the impurity of a passion-ridden heart, and from the will’s settled inclination to pursue only earthly goals; from spiritual ignorance; from an undeveloped taste for spiritual blessings, which require preparation, the exercise of mind and heart on spiritual matters—such as prayer, contemplation of God, the reading of the Word of God, works of Christian love and mercy, and the training of the flesh in self-restraint. But what does a person lose—what wondrous blessings, what peace, what spiritual sweetness, what spiritual light, what blessedness—a person who 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, our immortal Life? Nothing. No treasures, no pleasures or delights. «Deny yourself,» the Lord says further, «and take up your cross, and follow Me.» To deny yourself means to deny your own sinful will, your own vicious inclinations, your leanings and passions—in a word, every sin living and working within you, binding you, darkening you, defiling you, humiliating and dishonoring you, hindering you from following Christ into heaven, from striving toward true repentance, pure virtue, and Christian perfection, and making you a slave of corruption and death—perverting your nature, created in righteousness and holiness after God—and preparing for you an eternal separation from God and eternal torment.

Yes, brothers and sisters! We must, without fail, deny ourselves. If we look into ourselves impartially, with a clear conscience—into our own conscience, our own heart, our own deeds, our own idleness, and our whole vain life—we will at once find that, for the most part, we think, desire, speak, and do not what is truly necessary for us, not according to the intention and will of our all-good and all-wise Creator and Lord, but contrary to His intentions, according to our own perverse, vicious will. Look carefully into your own heart. What occupies it? What does it love? What does it incline toward? Toward its Creator? Toward good, toward righteousness and holiness, toward true well-being and blessedness, toward mutual love and help? No. Our hearts are, for the most part, occupied with themselves, steeped in self-love. How many passions in a single heart! How many sources of death! Each passion is a source of death, for each can kill a person forever, if he does not repent, change, and abandon it. So then, O man, deny yourself. But this is hard; the passions have become your second nature. What is to be done! The amputation of a limb, too, is very painful, but when it is necessary, a hand, a foot, even an eye, is given up to be cut off or torn out. The same must be done with our passions. If your right hand causes you to sin, cut it off and cast it from you—that is, not the hand of the body, but the passion in your soul which has become, as it were, your hand, as it were a natural member of your own body; this will be painful for you, as if you were being crucified, but it will bring you salvation, and will lead you to eternal life: you will be delivered from the all-destroying poison of sin, from the power of the devil, from the fire of hell. Take up your cross and follow Christ—that is, carry out His will, His commandments, His ordinances, His counsels. Soldiers in war, too, follow their commander’s directions firmly, in order to win the victory—and they win it; you too will win, if you follow your almighty Leader, Christ. «For whoever desires to save his life,» says the Lord, «will lose it» (Mk 8:35). What does it mean here to save one’s life? It means not to touch the passions of the soul, to leave them in peace, to let them live and grow strong, and rule over our mind, our heart, and our will—in a word, over soul and body; to live unrepentant, without thinking of death or of the eternal judgment. To take care of oneself in this way means to destroy one’s soul forever, to lose it.

It should be noted that the Lord, in saying this, was speaking chiefly of the time of persecution for faith in Him, and of instances of confessing His name before persecutors: for there were some among the Christians who, to preserve their temporal life, their wealth, or their honors, renounced Christ and the Christian faith, and thereby lost their souls, perished through their renunciation, through attachment to earthly goods. But even now there are many who, loving this temporal life and its goods, and the life of the flesh, immoderately, refuse to follow Christ, to keep His commandments, and live contrary to the duties of their calling, and do not repent of it—and thus lose their souls for eternity. «But whoever loses his life for My sake and the gospel’s,» says the Lord in today’s Gospel, «he will save it» (Mk 8:35). Here again is meant, chiefly, the case of the martyrs, who, for Christ’s sake, for the preservation of faith in Him and love for Him, willingly gave up their property, their rank, their family, and their very life, and thus preserved their life for eternity, for Christ and His eternal kingdom. «For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world, and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?» (Mk 8:36-37). This is said in explanation of the previous thought—that it is better to be deprived of all riches, honors, family, and even bodily life itself, than to destroy one’s soul forever through the renunciation of God, for the sake of preserving temporal life and temporal advantages, which soon abandon us. The soul is incomparably more precious than the whole world, being created in the image of God and destined for immortality—and it cannot be redeemed by anything from eternal torment, unless we redeem it here through faith in the merits of the Redeemer, in His redeeming blood, through the courageous confession of His name, and through a good life. «For whoever is ashamed of Me and My words,» says the Lord, «in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him the Son of Man also will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels» (Mk 8:38). Here is spoken of the need for boldness, or courage and fortitude, in confessing Christ, the Son of God, of sparing not our own life for Christ’s sake, and of following His will—because if anyone here counts it a shame to follow Him, to keep His commandments, or is ashamed to follow the ordinances of His Church for the sake of pleasing the world, the flesh, and the devil, of him the Son of God, too, will not acknowledge him as His own at His second coming and at His dread Judgment. A fearful word, brothers and sisters! Let us cast aside false shame and laziness toward piety, toward attending the divine services, laziness toward reading the Word of God and meditating on it; let us deny ourselves, let us cast aside the gratification of our passion-ridden flesh, of the world that lies in evil, and of the prince of this world, 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 for us a kingdom in heaven from the foundation of the world. Amen.

An exclamation at the Liturgy.

Canon of Preparation for Holy Communion, Ode 1, Troparion 1.

An exclamation at the Liturgy