Homily 634 – 3GL
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
March 23, 2025
Epistle:  (311) Hebrews 4:14-5:6
Gospel:  (37) Mark 8:34-9:1

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God.

Every time I put on a cross, whether the baptismal cross I wear next to my skin or the pectoral cross I wear over my clothes and vestments, this Gospel is what prayer I say.  “Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”

Saying it every day, multiple times a day, would seem to serve no purpose.  Except it is perhaps serving the most important purpose possible.  For in that prayer, we find the whole of the Christian life.  Every ascetical act – every fast, every rule of prayer, every Church service – finds its objective here, in self-denial.

And repeating it, regardless of how frequently, reminds me, intentionally, to bring my thoughts and actions back to self-denial.  Not to keeping the fast, not to the rules and ingredient lists, not to the number of prostrations or bows, or the quantity of incense offered.  Self-denial.

Jesus had just told his disciples and apostles about what was to happen to Him.  How He would be betrayed, and tortured, and killed – and would rise again.  St. Peter, probably voicing what the others were thinking, basically said, “Not on my watch, Lord!”

Not while I’m around!  I’ll defend you, regardless!  Now we all know how that went.  Peter didn’t deny himself, he denied Christ.  But his intent was in the right place.

Except that it really wasn’t.

It was in Peter’s right place – but not God’s right place.

Christ in telling us this statement says that we have to desire to do this ourselves, with nobody making us.  That is what He did in the Garden of Gethsemane.  Why?  Why was this important to Christ, and to our salvation?

For that, we have to go back to the fall of humanity in the Garden of Eden.  The first humans, Adam and Eve, are given instructions on what they could do, and how they were to live, in the garden.  The first human, the one of the earth – because at this point, there was only one.  Woman had not been created yet.

So this person is told, work in the garden.  Tend to the garden.  Eat the fruit of the trees.  But do not eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.  Note here that God didn’t say “I’m making this tree off-limits to you, to test your love for Me.”

He said, in a word, this fruit will poison your soul.  You will die if you eat it.  You will be disconnected from God, and from His fellowship and company and life-giving.

So, God then says that one person is very good, but something is missing.  One person is alone.  And alone is not good.  So, according to the language at the end of Chapter 2 of Genesis, the created human, a gender-neutral being, according to the Church Fathers and even the Rabbinic commentators on this passage – the gender-neutral, androgynous person has their female-ness removed and formed into a companion.  Adam and Eve.

While that is sort of interesting, it isn’t the main point for today, though.  Today, we need to move a bit forward in the narrative and look at the craftiest of the beasts of the field, the serpent.

The serpent engages the newly formed woman, who correctly restates the guidelines by which she and Adam are to live in the Garden.  The serpent takes issue with those guidelines.  You will not surely die, says the serpent.  In fact – and this is the key deception – you will become like God, knowing good and evil.

My brothers and sisters, the serpent played to Adam and Eve’s ego.  He tempted them to elevate themselves – self – above God, the Creator.  Adam and Eve then considered everything about the situation except what God had warned them.  They allowed, they chose, their own self above trusting God.  They followed their ego – and they fell.  Voluntarily.

Yes they were deceived and lied to by the serpent.  But they knew better.  They had been told.  They voluntarily made the choice to follow self, not God.

So, as the prayer at the consecration tells us, they were sent from paradise into this world, where we have inherited this defect in our lives.  It isn’t an inherited guilt over what Adam and Eve did, it is rather an inherited deformity in our being, our nature.

What Christ tells us here is that the only way to overcome that deformity, the only way to find life again, and communion with God again, is to voluntarily deny that part of us that we are so drawn to follow.  Our ego.  We are the central character in our lives, and we have to make God the central character – and more that the character, we have to voluntarily allow God to take over our lives, and to occupy every part of us, every aspect of life itself.

As Christ says here, if you want to save your life, you have to lose it.  If you want to gain God, you have to crucify your ego.

Doesn’t make sense until you start to connect the dots to the beginning of creation.  Then, Christ in the Garden of Gethsemane praying that what was to come might pass Him by, takes on a whole new significance.  The agony of knowing what is to come, and not wanting do pick that up is the agony that causes Him to sweat blood.

And yet, still, He commits to it.  Nevertheless, He says, Your will be done, Father.

This is the Cross.  This is the Cross we venerate today.  This is the Cross we also have to pick up and carry.  Voluntarily.

If we don’t?  We remain separated from God.  Period.  By the way, also voluntary.  It is completely our choice, either way.  Christ doesn’t compel us, because force isn’t love.

As we continue through Lent toward our own passion with the passion of our Lord and Savior, remember that self-denial is the cross we pick up.  Deny your ego, your will, your pride – whatever you want to call it.

And find life, and resurrection.

In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, One God.  Glory to Jesus Christ.