Die in order to live

CHRIST told us this very clearly. “Whoever loses his life for my sake, he is the one who will save it.” (Lk 9,24) We need to make some drastic adjustments in our attitudes and thinking to accommodate this truth of our faith as spoken plainly to us by Christ who is the fullness of God’s revelation to us.

We have to understand these words very well, because Christ for sure did not mean that we commit suicide out of our supposed love for him, much like those fanatic terrorist suicide bombers who unfortunately are becoming more common these days.

These suicide bombers sometimes cite some religious motives to justify their actions. But that is not what Christ meant when he said “whoever loses his life for my sake…” What he means is precisely to shed off our sinful selves, that is, the old man in us, in order to live our life with Christ who is precisely the pattern of our humanity.

This means that we have to continually fight against our weakness, our temptations and our sins that separate us from Christ or that violate the will of God for us. This will involve going against what we like in order to conform our will, our mind and heart to the will and ways of God as taught, shown and lived by Christ himself.

That is what is meant by “losing his life for my (Christ’s) sake.” We need to realize that our weaknesses, temptations and sins can so dominate us that they can practically become our life. And that is the life that we have to lose for the sake of Christ.

This fight against our weaknesses, temptations and sins will obviously involve effort, pain and suffering, since what is involved is the loosening of our will, our most precious and intimate faculty that practically identifies who we really are, so that our will conforms to the will of God.

Yes, it’s going to be a “bloody” struggle, but a struggle that is unavoidable and necessary. Besides, we are assured of victory as long as we go along with Christ who makes himself so available to us that he is all there for us.

We should never think that we will be going through this struggle by our lonesome, relying only on our own human powers. It’s true that what we would be tackling is overwhelming. But if we only open ourselves to God, nothing would be impossible for us.

We have to strengthen our belief that God never abandons us. It is rather us who can abandon him. That’s the problem that we have to try our best to resolve. If our faith is strong, we would know how to go through the process of suffering and dying to ourselves so we can rise with Christ.

In this regard, we have to meditate well on the passion, death and resurrection of Christ. It’s there where we are given a clear idea of how to suffer and die to ourselves so that, like Christ, we too can resurrect with him.

We have to learn how to assume the same motives that Christ had in going through his passion and death. It’s when we have the very mind and spirit of Christ as he faced his final act of love for us in obedience to the Father’s will that we can manage to face our suffering and death without fear.

While the pain and suffering in dying to oneself cannot be underestimated, we can still manage to find peace and confidence because we would know that that pain and suffering can only lead us to our greatest good and joy!