Today’s reading invites us to hear a rather difficult invitation to Christian discipleship, juxtaposed with a story about a glorious spiritual experience on the mount of the Transfiguration. The two stories are laid side by side in the Gospel of Matthew, which is interesting in light of the profoundly different visions that they contain.
In the first, Jesus’ words seem foreboding, and perhaps even harsh. “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me.” His words speak of losing life and giving up everything in anticipation of the judgement that would be released when apocalyptic “Son of Man” came to repay everyone for what they have done. The words seem ominous, demanding, even frightening.
But then, we as readers are invited into a very different scene – Jesus, high on a mountaintop, with Peter, James and John, transfigured in the glorious light of God’s presence, conversing with Moses and Elijah, with the divine voice that had spoken at the moment of Christ’s baptism speaking once again. “This is my Son, the Beloved; with him I am well pleased; listen to him!”
A strange juxtaposition of images – first, a vision of life-denying, self-sacrificial cross-bearing, apocalyptic judgement; and the second, a vision of glory, light, authority, confirmation.
So how do we hold these two visions together?
It is important for us to realize and to remember that the Gospel writers did not just string stories together in some haphazard way. Rather, there is a lot of meaning to be discerned from the placement of stories, and from the context in which different stories are told – context that is shaped and formed by the stories and passages around a specific narrative.
So it is with these two visions – in the first, the seriousness of Christian discipleship is addressed, clearly and explicitly. The call to follow Jesus, to walk in his way, should not be viewed as a completely easy, carefree way of life. To the contrary, there are challenges that following Jesus involves – challenges about our priorities, challenges about our attitudes, challenges about our actions, challenges about how we see every part of our lives. Denying ourselves, taking up a cross, laying down our lives for the sake of following him.
But then, in the second, absolute, miraculous, mindblowing light and glory, and an authority so great that not even Moses, the Lawgiver, and Elijah, the great Prophet, were to share the light.
Truth be told, most of us tend to swing back and forth between these two visions of what the path of Christian faith and discipleship entails.
On the one hand, we sometimes find ourselves thinking that following Jesus is about “giving up” things that might possibly bring us joy, or fulfillment, or pleasure, or a sense of success in life. The call to deny ourselves, and take up the cross and follow him is not an invitation to a particularly pleasurable existence. And those who we suspect are not taking their Christian faith seriously enough — since they seem like they are joyful, enjoying pleasure or experiencing joy – we think need to be reminded that Jesus advocated a life of self-giving sacrifice, a life of cross-bearing, a life of denying oneself. Our perspective on those who seem to be enjoying life is almost in line with the definition of Puritanism that the American essayist and critic H.L. Mencken offered – that Puritanism was “the haunting fear that someone, somewhere, may be happy.” Who are we to be happy? We’re supposed to be carrying a cross! Jesus said so.
Or we swing to the other end of the pendulum, and find ourselves up on the mountain with Jesus, Peter, James, John, Moses and Elijah and think that the path of Christian discipleship is – ever and always – leading us into glorious mountaintop moments, spiritual experiences marked by enthusiasm, light, wonderful mystical visions of Jesus, glory, the undeniable presence of God. And when we do have such moments, we – like Peter – want to do something to preserve and sustain the moment, to perpetuate the feeling, to keep it going. Peter wanted to build huts to stay in up on that mountaintop – and anyone who has had one of those wonderful spiritual moments of clarity will know why he wanted to do so. If following Jesus into such glorious moments is what it is all about, who wouldn’t want to stay there.
On one hand, a descent into self-denial and crossbearing; and on the other, the ascent into glory and enlightenment.
But what if these two visions – self-sacrifice and glorification – were not two visions at all, but rather two parts of the same vision, two sides of the same coin, two outcomes of a life of discipleship?
And what if we took that more seriously than we usually do?
What if we do what we can to take up the cross, to give of ourselves, to let go of the seemingly enticing promises of a life of ease and pleasure – but do so with trust that such a path will, in fact, lead us into a fuller vision of Christ’s glory? What if we give of our time, our energy, our focus – in a truly self-denying way – but do in the faith that the One who calls us to take up the cross is the very same One whose authority was confirmed by a divine voice which stated that He was to be listened to, followed, glorified? What if the path that we thought would lead to pain and discomfort was, in fact, the path into the presence of unexpected mountaintop glories?
It can actually be true of life. How often, for example, can you think of situations in your own life when you plucked up the courage to give of yourself for another – perhaps even to descend into the presence of suffering and pain – to go and visit a friend at the side of a hospital bed, to decide to love or forgive someone who was being terrible towards you, to give of your time to encounter and even to serve the poor, the needy, the hungry, the destitute, to choose to forego some degree of pleasure in order to help a person in need, to make the difficult decision to withdraw from conflict rather than to prove yourself right – but in those moments when you thought that you were making some great sacrifice or some act of self-denial, you had one of those amazing moments of insight, of clarity, even of a deepened awareness of the purpose of life, the presence of the divine, the experience of the holy?
How often has picking up the cross led you to a mountaintop?
It happens. It happens all the time. The irony, of course, is that if we seek to live with compassion for the sake of the potential reward, it rarely happens. But when we give of ourselves, not expecting any particular benefit except that of following in the path of faithfulness, it is so often, in those moments, when we realize that the cross and the mountaintop are both part of the same path of Christian discipleship.
I would like to conclude with words that are attributed to Ignatius of Loyola, about this strange paradox, this juxtaposition of the cross and the mountaintop, and of the path of discipleship that leads us to both.
And I would invite us to ponder these words, for a few moments, as we approach this Table at which we are invited to remember both the sacrifice that Jesus made on the cross, and the glorious new life that was born out of that terrible experience.
Dearest Lord,
teach me to be generous;
teach me to serve You as You deserve;
to give and not to count the cost,
to fight and not to heed the wounds,
to toil and not to seek for rest,
to labour and not to ask for reward
save that of knowing I am doing Your Will.
Through Christ our Lord,
Amen.
