+WHOEVER LOSES HIS OR HER LIFE FOR MY SAKE WILL FINE IT 28 June ‘26
My brothers and sisters in Christ, when I first read these words I found myself bewildered, put off by what they seem to be asking. Does Jesus mean I have to lose my life to find it, have to die in order to live. What is Jesus getting at if I am if I am going to be full of life, know a love that will never end?
These are not easy words for any of us, no matter how long we have been living the religious life or seeking to be a loving family member wherever we may be. Jesus is getting at the meaning of every human life, what makes our lives on this earth of lasting value. He’s telling us what is really precious, what is really going to give us a lasting satisfaction, what is going to build up the human family in a way that touchs the hearts of millions.
It is what took place in the heart of the woman of influence who urged the prophet Elisha to dine with her and to ask her husband to arrange a room for him to stay when he visited them. And this is what took place in the heart of St Paul telling the Romans that if “we have died with Christ we believe that we will also live with him” and that we must think of ourselves “as dead to sin and living for God in Christ Jesus.”
We are all looking for life and vitality. Practically from the moment of our birth, taking our first breathes, we’ve craved to be fully alive and to know that we are loved. Amid all our human cravings there has been even deeper longing, the unimaginable longing of persons needing to live in the very image and likeness to God.
Yes, in the hearts of each one of us gathered here this morning, there is the incredible need and desire to experience the unfathomable love God has for us and all of creation. Each of us is destined to live in God’s most loving presence for all eternity. This life we are now have is only a small fragment, important as it is, of a life to be lived in Christ’s eternal embrace.
We all too easily go looking for life and vitality in the wrong places, in what makes us feel good, having possessions, in food we enjoy, in relationships that give us pleasure, in entertainment, in places where we think we find life. But Jesus is telling us that he or she who finds life on these superficial levels will lose it but “whoever loses his or her life for his sake will find it.”
What then does he mean to lose one’s life for his sake? He gives us some good clues when he goes on to say that whoever receives a person who believes in him, receives Him. Whoever receives a prophet or a righteous person will receive a prophet’s or a righteous person’s reward. Whoever gives a cup of cold water to a little one will not lose his or her reward. It is the person who is loving without self-interests who comes to know a love that will never end.
The Eucharist we are celebrating is about the selfless love of Christ Jesus who becomes present on this altar, giving us his very own Body and Blood for the salvation of the world. Here the selflessness of God is fully manifest as we remember Christ’s self-emptying for the life of the world. Experiencing this love we become ever more like him, ready to give up our own lives for our world of today.
2Kgs 4:8-11m 14-16a; Rom 6:3-4,8-1; Matt 10:37-42