Today's readings: Zechariah 12, 10-11; Galatians 3, 26-29; Luke 9, 18-24.
The first reading from Zechariah today speaks of God's mercy and kindness for "the house of David and the citizens of Jerusalem". The great symbol of God's mercy is the crucified one: "They will look on the one whom they have pierced". Even the Gospel, speaking of discipleship, indicates the suffering Messiah as the one to be followed.
Starting from the need our world still feels of God's mercy, how can we today make sense of Jesus' words of losing one's life in order to save it? Even today, there are different opinions not only on who Jesus was but also on what he did and its significance for the world. His vision of life is not shared by all. Particularly his philosophy of how we can really find fulfilment in life.
Where aspirations are concerned, points of contact between our culture and Jesus seem so difficult. Rather than losing one's life to save it, the role models our children are presented with seem to go in the opposite direction. Yet life as we live it today is full of paradox. We are always proposed ways of saving our life which are in themselves illusory.
We may have different road maps in life and different standpoints. But what Jesus is saying is that basically there is only one truth in life, which is that there is only one way of going about life, in spite of the over-refined self-help methods proposed by popular psychology to make people feel good, find fulfilment, and achieve success.
The words of Jesus to take up one's cross every day need to be translated concretely as basically the challenge each and everyone are confronted with at some point to face the truth of life objectively. There is no gain without pain, and in the long run, quick fixes can only lead to further illusion regarding life's meaning.
Once we used to speak in terms of God having a personalised plan for each and everyone of us. Many simply no longer believe that. In a free world it sounds too oppressing and 'Big Brother' in style. But the words of Jesus on renunciation, taking up the cross and following him cannot be just translated in terms of being patient, or resigned to what comes your way without there being much you can do.
This is simply the contrary of what St Paul recalls in the second reading as a new existence having its origin in baptism. We cannot understand discipleship from a purely indivi-dualistic perspective. The Mes-siahship of Jesus has its political implications because Jesus did not come into the world merely to reveal to us who God is. His coming was meant to give historic significance to God's promise. Believing in Jesus as the Messiah, means believing that God's kingdom can really happen. And happen in the world as it is.
Christianity was never meant to be a religion of the status quo. We do not believe in a God who sanctions the present social order, with its internal and unjust divisions between poor and rich, between slaves and free people, between men and women, even holding the latter to be inferior to the former.
Christian ethics is not about the dos and don'ts morality. It's about a style of life, about fundamental attitudes towards life and existence; it is about positioning oneself for or against whenever need arises without fear of losing one's image or status. For so long we envisaged belief in Jesus Christ so individualistically and devoutly that religion ended up with little or no impact on the life of society.
So it is still pertinent to ask Jesus' question: "Who do the crowds say that I am?" Jesus himself acknow-ledges that "the Son of Man is destined to suffer grievously and to be rejected". It's high time we seriously examine whether Jesus is being rejected even in our churches.
In the proclamation of the Christian faith, we need a revamp in order to see whether we are clinging to the form at the cost of the sub-stance. The Spirit regenerates new life, that energy which can still convince the world that Jesus truly is the key to life's troubles.