Do you ever get too caught up in everything you're "supposed" to be doing as a Christian?
Do you ever feel like you're losing sight of the bigger picture, not sure how things
like fasting and giving alms connect with God Himself?
Are you ever tempted to feel kind of good about the ways you fast or pray, maybe even
a little proud?
Hey everybody this is Steve and Christ is calling us to put our fallen selves to death.
In this week's Gospel, Jesus tells us to pick up our cross and follow Him.
And in this week's Epistle, Paul encourages us to confidently approach the throne of grace
and receive God's mercy.
Links, as always, are down in the doobley-doo.
And remember to check out the intro videos we made for both Mark's Gospel account and
Paul's epistle, to help you better understand the readings.
So now we're getting ready for the third Sunday of Great Lent, which basically falls right
in the middle of the great fast.
As we explored last week, we're well on our way to the Cross.
That's our goal.
But if Great Lent is the road to the crucifixion and resurrection, the road to the Cross, why
do we interrupt that journey with a Sunday dedicated to the Holy Cross right in the middle
of it all?
When you read the Gospel passage, you'll notice it's not actually about Christ's crucifixion.
We won't read those passages until Holy Thursday, when we commemorate Christ's death on the
cross.
This week's reading is from much earlier in Mark's Gospel account, when Jesus told the
disciples that, if they really want to follow Him, they need to pick up their crosses.
When we use this phrase "pick up your cross," we're usually referring to something like
patiently enduring challenges, struggling under the weight of the temptations and difficulties
that life throws at us.
Those are all important things.
Really important things in the life of any Christian.
But not *the* most important things.
We've quoted Fr Stephen Freeman before, who has such a simple way of expressing a fundamental
truth about the Christian life.
As Fr Stephen often says, Jesus didn't come to make bad men good; He came to make dead
men live.
He came to bring us new and true and authentic life.
Life not in ourselves, in our old ways.
But rather life in Him.
And this is especially important to keep in mind during Lent: a time when we're called
to fast more, to pray more, to attend the services more.
Because, if we're not careful.
If we get too wrapped up in what we think *we're* doing; in the strength or patience
or virtue that *we're* displaying, then the evil one can take our ascetic work and flip
it on its head.
And the struggle of Great Lent, or the daily struggle of Christian asceticism, can actually
lead us deeper into pride and away from God.
Focusing on what *we've* patiently endured, on all the ways *we've* struggled under the
weight of temptations and difficulties, can lead us astray.
We can fall into the trap of pridefully congratulating ourselves for *our* patience and *our* strength.
We can become like the Pharisee, who we covered back in episode 19.
Someone who fasted twice a week, who prayed, who gave alms, who did everything he was *supposed*
to do.
Yet someone who ended up in the Temple *congratulating* himself.
Praying to himself.
We can get so caught up with how wonderful *we* are that we lose sight of God.
Because hey, look how good *I* am at carrying this cross.
But remember, Jesus didn't simply tell us to "take up our cross."
He told us to "take up our cross...and *follow* Him."
We forget that crosses aren't meant to be carried on our backs.
We're not meant to parade around with our cross, feeling good about how good and humble
we are.
We're meant to carry our crosses, following Christ Himself, to *Golgotha*, where a hammer
and nails await.
In other words: crosses are, to be blunt, meant for killing.
Jesus didn't carry His cross in an attempt to show how strong He is.
He lugged it up to the top of Golgotha, and then the Romans nailed Him to it.
He *died* on it.
He asks us to walk up to the very limits of our strength, to enter into weakness, to be
ready to die with Him.
Ok, this is getting a little intense.
What exactly is Jesus getting at here?
Let's take a look at this week's Epistle reading to give us a bit more perspective.
Paul starts this week's reading by reminding us that Jesus, though fully God, is also fully
human.
Though He's transcendent in His divinity, He's not distant.
And though, as God, He's all powerful; as a human being He grows close to us by joining
us in our weakness.
"For we have not a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one
who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin."
(Hebrews 4:15)
Jesus has faced temptations, just like us.
He's faced cold and hunger and loneliness, just like us.
He's faced death, just like us.
And this is why we can be assured of His love.
"Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy
and find grace to help in time of need."
(Hebrews 4:16)
Hold on a second, though: what exactly is the "throne of grace?"
We can find references to the throne of God scattered throughout the Old Testament.
And maybe the most beautiful is in the book of Isaiah, chapter 66, where the Lord says
"Heaven is my throne and the earth is my footstool."
(Isaiah 66:1)
So this throne of grace is the place where the Lord sits: where heaven and earth come
together.
It's where divinity and humanity come together.
It's where life and death come together.
It's where the grace from above comes down to us, human beings, here on earth.
The throne of grace...is the cross.
And the one who is seated upon this throne is our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
In a bizarre yet beautiful paradox, the Cross is simultaneously Christ's ultimate humiliation
and His ultimate lifting up, His exaltation.
Jesus who is human *and* divine.
Jesus, who is not just the Son of God, but *also* the High Priest who offers Himself
and the whole world to God the Father.
"Thou art my Son, today I have begotten thee"...
"Thou art a priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedek."
(Hebrews 5:5-6)
We talked about Melchizedek in our intro to Hebrews.
You may remember that, when Abraham meets Melchizedek, the High Priest, he gives him
a tithe.
An offering.
And if Christ is the High Priest, in the order of Melchizedek, what's the offering that *we*
give Him?
That's where we come back to what exactly it means to pick up ones cross.
Because the thing that we offer Christ is the same thing He offered His Father - ourselves.
We give Him our very lives, everything we have.
When Jesus picked up His cross, He carried it for a short while.
The Via Dolorosa, the road that some traditions say Jesus followed as He carried His cross
up to Golgotha, is less than half a mile long.
But this short walk was followed by *hours* hanging upon the cross.
In fact, some crucifixions lasted for days.
When we talk about picking up our crosses, and forget about following Christ, we assume
that *we* are the ones acting.
That *we* are the ones who have to be strong, who have to do the heavy lifting.
To carry our cross we need to be tough, patient, powerful.
Willing to press on even when we don't want to.
But crucifixion itself is the exact opposite of strength.
To be crucified is to be nailed to a cross.
To hang there, completely powerless, completely unable to do anything for yourself.
Hanging on the cross, having reached the *end* of your abilities, the only thing that's within
your power is to cry out for mercy.
And Christ asks us to do that, to hang on the cross just as He did - willingly, transforming
an instrument of death into the very throne of grace.
On the throne of grace, where heaven and earth come together, where divine and human action
come together: we realize that the limits of our strength take us to the feet of the
Lord.
We realize that the best use of our strength is in acknowledging our weakness.
That our actions are meant to take us to the Lord so *He* can act in us.
Because to be a Christian is not simply to put forth *our* own effort to be a good person,
someone who is very patient or very kind or very generous.
To be a Christian is to have died to your old self.
So, as Paul writes in his epistle to the Galatians: "it is no longer I who live, but Christ who
lives in me."
(Galatians 2:20)
In fact, when Paul talks about our patient endurance, he doesn't frame it as simply something
*we* do.
He reminds us that it is *God* acting in us.
Because we haven't simply carried our cross, bearing our suffering or ascetic labors as
an end in themselves.
We've followed Christ up to Golgotha and *died* with Him.
So we can *rise* with Him.
So He can *live* in us.
"We boast in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance
produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not disappoint us, because
God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit that has been given
to us."
(Romans 5:3-5)
So here, halfway through Lent, the Church is reminding us that *we* aren't in charge.
That, if we're proud of our fasting, that if we're pleased with the ways we're struggling
during Lent, then perhaps we're making a parade out of carrying our cross. ...and missing
the point.
We're walking in circles and taking comfort in our own strength.
We're carrying our cross but forgetting that we have to follow Christ up to Golgotha, too.
We're carrying our cross, but haven't yet felt its true weight.
The Church is inviting us to enter into a deeper humility, to let our hands and feet
be *nailed* to the cross.
To realize that, under our own power, we can do nothing.
That all we can do is cry out, again and again, and ask the Lord for His mercy.
Yet, as Paul reminds us in the Epistle, we can also be *confident* that Jesus will hear
us.
Because has already endured what we endure.
He has already hung from the cross that we're hanging upon.
We can be confident that He remembers what it was like.
And that there's no way that He's going to forget us.
The Church is challenging us to stop relying on the strength of *our* hands, on the wisdom
of *our* minds, on *our* efforts to fast, to pray, to give alms.
To remember that, if we're sticking to the fast, it's the Holy Spirit giving us the strength.
If we're loving our enemies and forgiving those who wrong us, it's the Holy Spirit giving
us the patience and endurance.
If we're sticking to our prayer rule, it's the Holy Spirit praying in us.
The Church is challenging us to lift up our very lives to God and allow our own strength,
effort...whatever it is we have to offer...to be nailed to the Cross.
To approach His throne of grace.
Because it is God who is alive, and acting, in us.
We've covered a lot of ground today.
And to help work through what this all means for each us, we'll end as we always do on
Live the Word: with 3 questions.
First, do you need God's help with certain parts of your Lenten journey?
Maybe you're having a tough time fasting from certain foods.
Maybe you're not attending as many services as you hoped you would.
What are the areas where you feel like you may be falling short?
And have you turned them over to God, and asked for His help?
Or are you just beating yourself up about not being strong enough yourself?
Second, do you remember to thank God for the parts of your Lenten journey that seem to
be going well?
Maybe you are fasting as well as you hoped, or going to as many services as you can.
Are you remembering to offer these successes back to God, to thank Him for the grace that
is sustaining you on a daily basis?
Third, are there any ways you feel your life has already been transformed by God?
Remember, our goal as Christians is to put to death our broken and false selves, so Christ
can truly live in us.
Maybe you've experienced this by seeing a change in your life, resolution to some problem
or difficulty?
Or maybe you're still struggling under the weight of something, still bearing your cross,
but you're doing it in a different way: feeling God's hand at work, having turned the problem
over to Him and His mercy?
Not simply carrying your cross, but carrying it and following Him.
We'll be back with a new episode on Monday.
And my buddy Christian will have a short response video up on Thursday as he wrestles with these
questions.
I hope you'll read the Gospels and Epistle passages we covered today.
And, whether it's with family or friends or a Bible Study group, I hope you'll talk about
what we've covered and wrestle with what God has for you, in your life.
Most importantly, I hope you'll celebrate with us this Sunday and every Sunday, to hear
the beautiful Scripture readings proclaimed during the Divine Liturgy and to learn how
you can Live the Word.
Thanks for watching.
You can click on our logo to subscribe to our channel, and make sure you turn on notifications
so you never miss a video.
You can find lots more from us at our website: y2am.org.