Dying Hard
Scripture may not explicitly contain the phrase “die to oneself”, but it does imply this dying — not as a way of living, but as THE way to life.
One of the earliest references that Jesus makes to dying in order to live, is when he tells a flummoxed Nicodemus, “Very truly I tell you, no one can see the kingdom of God unless they are born again.” (John 3:3) We are first born on our birthdays, when our earthly parents accept us, counting tiny fingers and toes, but we are born again on the day we accept our heavenly Father and begin to listen to his Holy Spirit. The revelation of the kingdom of God, as Jesus says, happens here, when we are baptised — born again, of the spirit. But first, something else very important needs to happen.
We need to die, but not our bodies — our selves.
You see, we cannot be born again, while our old selves still live — if our baptism made room only for cosmetic adjustments, like a spiritual facelift, we would be, simply, a changed person. But Paul says, “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; look, new things have come into being!” (2 Corinthians 5:17) In Christ, we are born again… a new creation. And so, our old selves too must “pass away”; we too must die.
Now Nicodemus finds the pill Jesus hands him a hard one to swallow. “How can these things be?”, he asks, and Jesus replies,“If I have told you about earthly things and you do not believe, how can you believe if I tell you about heavenly things?” Ah — heavenly things — this is what had drawn Nicodemus, a Pharisee and a member of the prestigious Sanhedrin, to see Jesus, an itenerant teacher from the uncelebrated town of Nazareth, in the first place. He had seen a hint of the heavenly in Jesus and had wanted more — and so he came to see him in the dead of the night. However, to get more than a glimpse of the heavenly, Nicodemus would have to be baptised and follow Jesus. But a Pharisee standing in line to be baptised is as unlikely a sight as a [insert politically correct stereotype here] standing in line to [insert corresponding politically correct sterotype]! Nicodemus would cease to be a Pharisee and would have to leave behind his title, honour and knowledge, to be able to accept Jesus and his teachings. And so, Nicodemus was unable to die to himself, and remained, not content with earthly things, but afraid of dying for the sake of heavenly things.
The next time Jesus mentions denying the self, the context is again a heavenly revelation followed by an inability to accept it — this time, Peter’s. Peter has just answered Jesus’ question of “Who do you say I am?” with “You are the Messiah, the Son of the living God.”, and Jesus explains how Peter somehow knows this, “ Flesh and blood have not revealed this to you, but my Father in heaven.” (Matthew 16:17) He is mighty pleased, not because Peter has just called him the son of God, but because the ex-fisherman has accepted and had the courage to verbalise what was revealed to him by heaven. A few minutes later, however, when Peter tries to dissuade Jesus from his mission, Jesus rebukes him sternly saying, “ You are setting your mind not on divine things, but on human things.”
This is not the first time Peter has dropped the ball (and certainly not the last), but he is being scolded for choosing, like Nicodemus, to focus on human things instead of following through on the divine revelation he has been given.
And it is here, in this context, that Jesus tells us that in order to be his disciples, we need to deny ourselves, take up our cross and follow him. This oft-quoted, albeit out of context, verse is essentially a response to Peter’s failure. Jesus is giving us a prescription to remedy this — a way to set the mind not on human things, but on the divine. It is only when we deny a) our selves (our identity in the world, like Nicodemus) and b) our human will (our desires, good though they may seem — like Peter’s to protect Jesus from his Passion), that we can allow God to reveal divine things to us.
The prophets of the Old Testament were able to know these divine things, but only while the Holy Spirit was with them, for a certain time. But to all Christians who are baptised, we have received the Holy Spirit forever and so we should all be prophets, knowing the things of God… at all times! So why do we not?
The reason we cannot claim to know heavenly things, like the prophets of old is that though we have the Holy Spirit in us, we’re still full of our “selves”; we have yet to “set our minds” on heavenly things, or tune in fully to the Holy Spirit. There’s still the noise of our selves around us; a noise we need to tune out.
But how does one tune oneself out? Let me show you how this works. My dad uses a hearing aid — or is supposed to, anyway. The reason the device sits in a drawer instead of snugly in his ear, is because he claims it amplifies not only what he wants to hear, but also the sounds in the background, like the whirrr of the fan and the birds screeching on the tree outside. But that’s the thing — those “background” sounds are not really background sounds at all — they’re just sounds. In truth, all sounds are being received by our ears at all times, but it is the brain that tells us which sounds are important and which must be relegated to the “background”. The fan doesn’t have anything important to say, but we do need to focus on what our spouse is asking us to get from the supermarket — or we will go hungry that night!
Similarly, it is perfectly natural for us to be aware of the sound of our selves saying in the background, like Nicodemus, “How can these things be?” or like Peter, “This must not happen”. In our case, it might be — “Who will take care of me?”, or “But I’m too old” , or “ This is the person I must marry to be happy” or “I’m going to medical school.”
Our selves are full of the things we have done, or want to do, or are afraid of doing.
So which is the voice we will focus on, and which will we relegate to the background? The choice is indeed ours — this is free will. The chosen are also the ones who choose and there are plenty who heard Jesus and decided to deny the sound of their selves — the Samaritan woman, Zachheus, Matthew, Paul and so many others.
But once we have decided to die to ourselves, there must next come the question — how much?
