Friday in the Eighteenth Week of Ordinary Time, August 11, 2023

Matthew 16, 24-28

Jesus said to his disciples, “Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me. For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. What profit would there be for one to gain the whole world and forfeit his life? Or what can one give in exchange for his life? For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct. Amen, I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”

Today’s Gospel Reading is taken from the Lord’s words following St. Peter’s confession that Jesus is “The Christ, the Son of the living God” (Matthew 16, 16).  After Peter, through the grace of God, made this amazing confession of faith, the Lord began to teach them very explicitly that the “Christ”, the Messiah, was not what the Pharisees had taught, but one who would “suffer many things from the elders and scribes and chief priests, and be put to death, and the third day rise again” (Matthew 16, 21).  His teaching so flew in the face of what they had grown up with believing that Peter tried to argue with the Lord about this, and the Lord responded strongly: “Get away from me, Satan! You are a stumbling block for me because you are discerning the things that are of God, but the things that are of men”  (Matthew 16, 23).  This quieted Peter and the other Apostles and prepared them, stunned and reeling, for what he would teach them next.

“Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”  “Takes us” has more of the sense of “raise up” and “follow” can also mean “to accompany”.  The implication is clear from his previous teaching that he would suffer crucifixion from the elders, the scribes, and the chief priests, and that if anyone desired to come after him as a disciple he must “deny”, or, “disregard” or “disown” himself, take up his cross, and walk after (or with) him.  He teaches that the disciple must do much more than merely learning a few precepts or despising one’s property, or even members of his family (cf. Matthew 10, 37).  The disciple must despise or turn his back on his very self.   It is asking a circle to square itself.  What Jesus demands is accomplished only with the help of divine grace, but it still requires enormous sacrifice — self-sacrifice — on the part of the disciple.  Even with grace, one must continuously struggle to keep from “looking back” at his own interests, for “No one putting his hand to the plow and looking back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9, 62).  Only God could make such a demand.  The disciple thereby “loses” the life he had before becoming a disciple in order to find an entirely new life, the life God wants for him, with and in Jesus Christ.

“For the Son of Man will come with his angels in his Father’s glory, and then he will repay each according to his conduct.”  In the context, the Lord is saying that he will come again in glory and repay each disciple according to the degree to which he denied himself, took up his cross, and followed him.  Those who do not try, like the servant assigned the one talent, will be judged severely: he will be cast into “the exterior darkness. [where there] shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth” (Matthew 25, 30).  But for those who “gain interest” on the Lord’s investment of grace in them and do deny themselves and persevere in this denial, the Lord makes an astounding promise: “I say to you, there are some standing here who will not taste death until they see the Son of Man coming in his Kingdom.”  Many have misinterpreted this verse, and it does indeed poses certain difficulties for it sounds as if the Lord is telling people alive at the time that the Kingdom would come before they died.  But a close look at his wording reveals his meaning.  The Lord says that the righteous who deny themselves and follow him with not “taste” or “experience” death before they see him come again.  The believer encounters death in a very different way than an unbeliever.  He does not taste its bitterness for he knows that it leads to the embrace of Jesus, the love of his life.  Those who think of death as the extinction of the self experience terrible fear and anguish.  Professed atheists make a great show of being at peace with extinction but they busy themselves in this way in order to avoid thinking about it.  Secretly, panic rages in their hearts.

Let us so strive to give ourselves without reservation to Almighty God that at the end of our days on earth we may have as our last words, “My God, I love you.”  And may they be the first we speak in heaven.