The Way of the Cross

Jesus said, "Let anyone who wishes to come after me deny himself, take up
his cross and follow me."

After more than 30 years as a Christian, I think I'm only just now beginning
to understand this... I'm just a beginner and may never be any more than
that. I think of St. John of the Cross and cannot imagine "St. Jim of the
Cross."

Dying is so hard, especially when everything within screams, "I want to
LIVE!" I once heard a man say, "You cannot crucify yourself. You may be
able to nail down your feet and one hand but what happens to the other
hand?" The problem is that I'm not even sure I can climb onto the cross
myself, let alone nail myself to it.

And I think of a poem by C. S. Lewis:

All this is flashy rhetoric about loving you
I never had a selfish thought since I was born.
I am mercenary and self-seeking through and through.
I want God, you, all friends, merely to serve my turn.
Peace reassurance, pleasure are the goals I seek;
I cannot crawl one inch outside my proper skin.
I talk of love (a scholar's parrot may talk Greek)
But, self-imprisoned, always end where I begin.

Only that now you taught me (but how late the lack!)
I see the chasm. Everything you are was making
my heart into a bridge by which I might get back
From exile, and grow man. And now the bridge is breaking.

I'm not sure I understand what all Lewis meant in this but what I recognize
is that he recognized a condition of heart that was in desperate need of God
to do something, to do that thing that only God can and even would do. He
seemed to recognize that that what he needed was something that needed to be
done again and again and again.

It's not simply a matter of "being" dead to sin, dead to self and dead to
the world. It's not a once and done thing. It is, whether we like it or
not (and I certainly do not), a process of dying. I suppose this means that
we don't get to have our Gethsemane "once and for all." There must be lots
of them.

So, let it be, Lord. Make my heart, make our hearts what they ought to be.
Make it so in all your people, Lord. Then we will truly be one with you,
one with each other, and the whole world will know that you are God.