Loving and Losing Life: A Meditation on Matthew 16

It is hard to lift one’s eyes, and see beyond this life.  As sinful and broken people, it is our twisted nature to fixate on the physical aspects of life, and forget or ignore the spiritual realities that surround us.  I have found, both in myself and my neighbors, a proclivity to dwell upon those things which immediately strike the senses with pleasure.  I enjoy the smell of the ocean breeze, the surge of adrenaline during sport, and the taste of good whiskey.  I like the feeling of driving fast, of productive work, and comfortable rest.  I treasure my time with family and friends, stout beer around a common table, and hearty laughter.  I am glad to be alive in this world, and I marvel in all the wonders God has brought forth in it.  It is a good world, and full of delights to the senses—blessings God has given to us, and to the whole of creation.

These good gifts are not evil things, nor is it evil to enjoy the gifts of God as God has given them.  But these good gifts of God to His creation, if misused or misunderstood, can become idols to sinful men.  People who have forgotten the Creator and have become absorbed in themselves, often fail to see the good gifts of God for what they objectively are, and instead see them as a means to gratify one’s self.  Instead of deeply inhaling the sea breeze and giving glory to God for the wonder of His good works, it is hard for me to see beyond the basic pleasure of the experience.  So with all the pleasures of life, and even with life itself.  As a sinful and selfish man, my embrace and use of God’s good gifts so often become an exercise in self gratification, which in the end is only an evidence of my own self idolatry.  I love my life, and all the good things God pours into it, because I love myself.  It is my fallen nature to turn all the good gifts of God into demi-gods that serve only myself… the god I prefer, according my old Adamic nature that fell to the same temptation so many years ago.  I become a living perversion of God’s good creation, corrupting all His good gifts to my own glory and comfort, and forgetting—or ignoring—the deeper realities that underlie everything.

This is something I think the old monks and hermits tried to get right.  Knowing their own weakness in the face of all God’s good gifts, they attempted to lift their eyes beyond the material things of life, so that they might focus better on the spiritual things.  The patterns of Christian fasting fall into this camp, as well, when we deny ourselves material things to which we have become too attached, so that our eyes might be lifted to truths far deeper and higher than just the material riches we enjoy.  And it is in this way, that Jesus’ caution is given to His disciples, that whoever will love their life will lose it, and whoever will lose their life for His sake, will find it.

As sinful creatures, our sinful fixation on the temporal things of life, declare our just condemnation.  We are not worthy of the good gifts God gives to us, because we use them to glorify and serve ourselves, rather than the Creator.  We are not worthy even of our lives, because we use our life to serve ourselves, rather than the One who gave us our life in the first place.  When sinners love their lives more than they love their Creator, they declare before God and the whole creation, that like the devil and his fallen angels, we deserve nothing but death and hell forever.  Our condemnation is written in our very being, as we befoul the life we are given, and by extension, everything we touch.

But it is for sinners like you and I, that our Savior has come.  Jesus beheld the glory of the original creation which was brought forth through Him, and He knows the divine love that brought us into existence.  He knows the true depths of horror to which we fell in our first parents, and the hopeless contortion of the human soul when the image of God was so grievously marred.  He knew the somber truth, that no man would ever be justified in the sight of God by his own works, and that no man, woman, or child would ever be able to escape their fallen nature, nor the hell of fire which they earned.  Jesus knew that the only hope for fallen man, was for Him to take on our flesh, live and die in our place, and suffer all the death and hell we had earned.  Our only hope for life, was for Jesus to die.

And so, to St. Peter and the whole Apostolic band, Jesus drives home His point with brutal precision.  If we will cling to our idolatrous love of our own lives, serving ourselves and corrupting the whole creation with our wickedness, the life we have will be lost to hell forever.  None who cling to themselves, have the power to save themselves.  But those who release their own love of self and trade it for the love of Christ, find a life that cannot be conquered by hell or the grave.  Because Jesus is the source of all life, and showed forth His victory over sin, death, and hell by His resurrection from the dead, all who share in His life will live forever.  Thus, anyone who surrenders their idolatrous attachment to life for the sake of Jesus, finds that they live forever through Him.

And so Jesus calls His disciples, and all of us, to take up our cross—the very implements of our own self denial and death—that we may follow Him to everlasting life.  Each day He calls us, not to spurn the created world and all its beauteous wonder, but to lift our eyes to the deeper realities which underlie the material universe, and even our own lives.  We are called to serve the only true God, who is the creator and redeemer of all things, and to remember that we are not saved from death by our frenetic clutching to our idols, but by grace through faith in Christ alone.  Alive in Christ, forgiven and free, we may once again breath in the salty air, let the flavors of good food and drink linger on our pallet, and rejoice in the good company of family and friends—because as we let go of these things as idols, surrendering even our idolatry of self, we find that instead of having lost everything, we have gained an eternal inheritance.  Dying to ourselves, we live in Christ and never die again.  Free from our slavish pursuit of simple pleasures, we find ourselves immersed in the boundless ocean of God’s never ending love and grace.  Giving up the paltry and passing novelties of sin, we find ourselves blessed with life and riches as immeasurable and eternal as Our Lord.

Here the people of God rest, and here the people of God work.  Here we repent of our selfish pride and idolatry, and cast our hope and faith upon Jesus our Savior.  Here we find deliverance from death even as we die, knowing that our eyes which have been fixed on Christ by faith, shall open one day to see Him and His salvation clearly, face to face.  Here is the hope and the endurance of the saints, who have seemingly lost their lives in this world, only to find an eternal life in Jesus Christ—and here we are added to their glorious number, by grace through faith in Him.  Amen.