Homily 611 – 12 APE
Holy Transfiguration, Ames, Iowa
September 15, 2024
Epistle:  (203) Galatians 2:16:20 (Sunday after the Elevation), (158) 1 Corinthians 15:1-11
Gospel:  (37) Mark 8:34-9:1 (Sunday after the Elevation), (79) Matthew 19:16-26

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

The Gospel from Mark for the Exaltation of the Cross is one of the most important readings for anyone who calls themselves Christian.  Anyone who would follow Christ.

Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

As a priest, I offer that verse as a prayer every time I put the cross around my neck.  If you wear a cross, either your baptismal cross or any cross, I encourage you to make the sign of the cross with it, kiss that cross in veneration, and say this same brief prayer.

Whoever wants to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.

Then, place the cross around your neck.

Now, it will help us to dissect these words of our Lord a bit.  To deny yourself doesn’t necessarily mean to simply do without stuff.  To take up our cross doesn’t necessarily mean to do something distasteful.

To understand what Christ is saying, it’s important to go back to the reason Christ became incarnate in the first place – the fall of humanity.  We go all the way back to Genesis chapter 3, where Adam and Eve were tempted by the serpent.  How were they tempted?  If you look very carefully, the serpent appealed to the human ego.

The deception of the serpent was “God doesn’t want you to be like Him.” A pure play to our human ego. What happened at the fall is that the good order of humanity became inverted. The connection with God, what the Church Fathers call the “nous” in Greek, was supposed to be the controlling element, if I can describe it that way, with our ego and emotions and intellect all existing under the dominion of the nous.

The serpent encouraged the first couple to “think for themselves”, which they did. As a result the ego suddenly got in between the person’s nous and God. That is to say, human nature fell. It became disordered. Humanity was cut off from the source of Life, who is God, and became subject to physical death.

What Christ did for us, in the Garden of Gethsemane, was restore the order of the human will/ego as dependent on the nous. “Nevertheless, not my will be done, but Yours Father.” Three times, with the stress of that struggle between the human dand divine will causing Christ to “sweat blood.”

Then, Christ proceeded, voluntarily, to go to the Cross, and to endure the passion. The hymns of Holy Saturday tell us that the death on the Cross was to redeem us, to ransom us, not from sin, but from death. In so doing, death itself – separation from God, being cut off from the source of Life – was destroyed, since how can death exist in the presence of never-ending life? How can darkness exist in the presence of light?

This disorder, the placement of ego above nous, which cuts us off from God, is what happened to humanity, and what we are in need of healing. Christ enabled that healing for us. And, as a result, we have to do the same as Christ, and sacrifice our ego/will, voluntarily crucifying it, which is to say taking up our cross through self-denial.

How does one crucify their ego? We start by relinquishing control of ourselves to something other. In the Orthodox Church, we begin with obediently being baptized, experiencing the grace of renewal and re-engagement of the nous. We practice the ascetical disciplines, where we learn how to tame the most difficult of our attachments, that of food, and material goods, and time.

We offer ourselves to Christ in the Divine Liturgy, through the bread and wine offered “Your own of your own, on behalf of all and for all,” and consume the offering which is accepted by God and returned as the Body and Blood of Christ. We offer ourselves, God offers Himself.  We do that here, on this altar, in God’s presence, and we also do it day by day and moment by moment on the altar of our own heart.

We learn to live a life of repentance. When our ego gets in our way, we return our focus and life direction to Jesus Christ. Repentance is our course correction. In Greek, the word we translate as “sin” is “amartia”, meaning to miss the mark or miss the target. Repentance is “metanoia”, meaning to change the direction and focus of our lives.

We live a life of constant repentance, continual course corrections, returning to the target of Jesus Christ instead of following the egotistic and selfish path which is sin.

And, continuing on Christ’s quote, we do so without regard to what the world thinks or how the world may judge us.  What will it profit if someone gains the whole world and loses his life?

What we should begin to see is that the material things of this world will not last.  Doesn’t matter what they are – buildings, organizations, countries.  Not one will last.  All will die, and return to the dust from which they came.

Look at archeology.  Most all archeological finds are less than 5,000 years old.  Yes, we have some older, but they are the most rare of finds.  They are the exception, not the “norm.”  We know that there are finds dating much earlier, but most things, even things made of stone, don’t last more than 5,000 or so years.  Stonehenge in England appears to be about 5,000 years old.  The Pyramids in Egypt appear to be about 5,000 years old.

And what is 5,000 years in the span of eternity?  Compared to the number that scientists use, 13 or 14 billion years, 5,000 years is 0.000385%.  Over the course of one year, that’s about 12 seconds.

Why do we give such power when pretty much the entirety of human civilization on earth is, in relative terms, 12 seconds?  Our lives here are so brief.  The purpose of our time here, now that we are fallen, is to find our healing in Christ, to be with God, our Creator, for eternity itself.

That is the way God intended.  That is what God still intends.

We have to spend our days on the earth, in the fallen world and with our fallen nature, wisely.  God has delivered us, God has healed us, God is healing us.  God will heal us.

All we have to do is deny ourselves, take up our cross, which is the crucifixion of our ego, and follow Christ.

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