Justin Appel
Dear Friends,
Today’s Gospel lesson, John 12:20-26, contains a familiar agricultural reference to signal a basic precept about the Christian life. One cannot follow Christ without first dying to oneself. A grain of wheat cannot be productive unless it first falls into the earth and dies.
Such an idea parallels the notion that we are supposed to “take up our cross and follow” Jesus. This idea sounds a bit too familiar, perhaps, but if we stop and think about it, it is radical in its call to a kind of death.
In what practical ways might we die to ourselves, or what form might the cross take in our lives? While there will undoubtedly be differences in our individual calling, the Church teaches some universal elements of discipleship. These will likely not be popular ways to live, because the world around us teaches the opposite sort of values:
We should die to ourselves by pursuing humility. This is hard in a world that teaches us to get high-paying jobs, to go the best schools, to enjoy the finest things in life, to appear “respectable” in our mode of living.
We should try to think of ourselves as being no more important or valuable than any other person. This is hard when society teaches us that self-worth and self-expression are ultimate ideals, or that education is the solution to every problem.
We should cultivate self-awareness and repentance. This is hard when the world tells us to pursue pleasure and vanity, and because it provides all sorts of fuel for the fires of our passions.
We should submit to the traditional ways of life the Church has taught from the beginning. These are not flashy and attractive, in a sophomoric way, but deep and substantial: fasting, prayers, alms giving. This too is hard when the world presents an alternative religion, filled with its own abstinences, its own sad worship, its counterfeit sacrifices.
None of this makes sense from a human perspective, so Christ calls us to live by faith!
This approach to life challenges me. I’m not particularly “good at dying” and I feel the struggle with the world about me. Nonetheless, Christ’s call to die resounds in my experience.
The Church teaches us that the cross, this death that Jesus calls us to experience, this crucifixion, is a badge of honor, a trophy. Our great privilege is to die to ourselves so that we may live in the newness of Christ’s resurrection life.
Yours in Christ,
—Justin