Text:
24 Then Jesus said to his disciples, “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow me. 25 For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will find it. 26 For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his own soul? Or what will a man give in exchange for his soul?
the explanation:
“Whoever wants to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me.”
That a person should give up all his desires, all his passions and his world. A person may feel that he is nothing and wants to make something of himself.
This person finds himself in the eyes of others; they see him as great, so he becomes great; they see him as intelligent, so he becomes great. But in himself, if he stands alone in seclusion before the Lord, he sees himself as empty.
Each of us is afflicted with this calamity to varying degrees, and that is why the Master says: Disbelieve in yourselves, disbelieve in your wealth, disbelieve in your glories.
And if you come to atone, not only for your sins and desires but for yourself, then you gain yourself. You gain yourselves because you will have said to the Lord: Lord, we understand that we are nothing and you are everything. Come, Lord Jesus, and fill our souls with your presence. But this has forced us to follow the Master to the end, for each of us to carry his cross and follow the Master. And this is the cross, to put to death everything that hinders us, that hinders our journey to Christ.
“What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world and loses his soul?”
It is easy for us to say when a person dies: What did he take with him? But before we die, we all draw from this life, we love it, we enjoy it.
It is easy for any person, when faced with a coffin being carried to the cemetery, to say: What did he take with him? But in our lives, every day of our lives, why does a person not say to himself: What will I take with me to the grave?
It is easy to say about someone else who is being carried on a bier, what did he take with him? But this is something that a person does not say to himself, nor does he say it to himself every day, nor when he cheats in business, nor when he plays tricks on the state, falsifies his accounts, and eats the wages of hired workers. When he fills his belly with worldly goods, he does not say: What do I take with me? What does it profit a person if his belly swells up completely and he loses his soul, because this soul has become filthy and stinking, because everyone who has turned away from Christ is filthy and stinking.
Every human being is enthroned in this world, prostrated in it, loves it, eats it, enjoys it in his mouth, ears, eyes, hands, and all his senses. Every human being among us eats the world and does not ask himself what it benefits a person if he gains the whole world and loses his soul.
About the message of the Lattakia Diocese
Sunday 15-9-2002 / Issue 37
