Third Sunday of the Great Fast: Veneration of the Holy Cross; Our Venerable Father and Confessor Theophilactus, Bishop of Nicomedia.
Day 21 of the Great Fast.
Hebrews 4:14-5:6; Mark 8:34-9:1.
Read Mark 8:34-9:1
A car with a dent is not basically a dent, it is still a car. The human image of God marred by sin is not basically sin, we are still the image of God. But whereas an auto body shop sees cosmetic damage – a dent that can be hammered out, God sees that we have suffered structural damage – a bent frame that would write a car off. But God does not write us off. The denial of self that God calls us to is not a negation of self. Those who follow Jesus in his cross-carrying are not obliterated; they become more fully their unique God-created selves.
Historically, carrying a cross was a one-way trip – cross-carriers weren’t coming back to their lives. To voluntarily make that the governing metaphor of our relationship with Christ requires that we be willing to engage in self-denial when what is disordered within us becomes apparent through following him.
The deep wound of sin within us is the frame upon which all the wrong in the world is built. Cross-carrying with Christ clarifies for us the relationship between our inner life and its external manifestation in the world. The ongoing process of disconnecting from bent building projects within ourselves stops our self-inflicted re-wounding, opening ourselves to Christ’s healing and rebuilding. In following Christ, we are given the opportunity to deny the bent frame within us the role of being the structure we build upon. Instead, we can participate with God in rebuilding the structural framework of our inner life and its outward expressions.