The Most Difficult Thing
He asks you and me and all who
would be His disciples to die to self and take up our Cross and follow Him.
What is the hardest, most difficult thing you
were ever asked to do? And, were you persuaded to do it? I know the answer! I
know the answer because I have dedicated my life to proclaiming the Gospel of
Jesus Christ, the One who explained that He had come to set the earth on fire,
the One who admitted to the greatest anguish in anticipation of His baptism,
His Passion on the Cross. And He asks you and me and all who would be His
disciples to die to self and take up our Cross and follow Him.
That's along the same lines of what Jeremiah
was asked to do. A demanding prophet is never popular, particularly in
demanding times, when people most want to hear anything to make them feel good
about themselves. In Jeremiah's day, the calamitous effect of decadent decades
of a whole nation turning away from God was all too evident, but people
preferred to pitifully punish the prophet who pointed out such problems, rather
than heeding his call to do things God's way. You see, Jeremiah was asked to do
things God's way in his own life, even at the price of his own life, and
further, Jeremiah was asked to relay that same message to all the people. Not
an enviable way to make a living!
And yet, the Second Reading surprises us with
the unlikely but nevertheless undeniable reminder that, over the centuries, a
great crowd of witnesses have joined Jeremiah in doing things God's way in
their own lives, even at the price of their own lives. How so? Simply by
"keeping our eyes fixed on Jesus, the leader and perfecter of faith. For
the sake of the joy that lay before Him, He endured the cross, despising its
shame, and has taken His seat at the right of the throne of God. Consider how
He endured such opposition from sinners, in order that you may not grow weary
and lose heart. In your struggle against sin, you have not yet resisted to the
point of shedding blood...."
What's the hardest, most difficult thing you
and I have ever been, and will ever be, asked to do? To take Jesus at His word,
and to take our faith in Him seriously, to do things God's way in our lives,
even at the price of our very lives! It's not at all easy to do that in these
demanding times, when people most want to hear anything to make them feel good
about themselves and their predicament. But it's never been easy, nor will it
ever be easy - by definition, dying to self is the hardest, most difficult
thing one can be asked to do, and yet here we are, in spite of our
unworthiness, in spite of our failings and fears, praying that same psalm,
"Lord, come to my aid!" For the sake of the joy that Christ defined,
we have been persuaded, and so we ask God for the grace to join that great
crowd of witnesses who do things God's way in their own lives, even at the
price of their own lives!