Matthew 16:22-28: a reflection

After telling his disciples he must suffer and die, Jesus meets Peter's protest with a hard word, and then teaches the paradox at the heart of following him: to save our life we must lose it. Whoever desires to save his life will lose it, Jesus says, and whoever will lose his life for my sake will find it. For what will it profit a man if he gains the whole world and forfeits his life? To follow Christ is to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow him; and the paradox is that in losing our life for his sake, we find it, while grasping to save it, we lose it. The way of self-denial and the cross is, paradoxically, the way to truly find life. This shows the paradox that we find our life by losing it for Christ's sake. To save our life we must lose it for Christ. Grasping to save our life loses it; losing it for Christ finds it. The way to true life is the cross and self-denial. We find our life by losing it for Christ's sake.

Notice the paradox Jesus teaches. Our natural instinct is to save our own life, to grasp it, protect it, live for ourselves, seek our own advantage; this seems the way to have life. But Jesus says the opposite is true: whoever grasps to save his life this way will lose it, while whoever loses his life for Christ's sake will find it. The way to truly find life is not to grasp and protect it for ourselves, but to lose it, to deny ourselves, take up our cross, and follow Christ, giving our lives to him and for him. And Jesus presses the value at stake: what does it profit to gain the whole world but forfeit one's life, one's very self? This is a searching paradox that overturns our natural self-interest. The self-focused life, grasping to save and serve itself, ends in losing what matters most; but the life given over to Christ, lost for his sake in self-denial and cross-bearing, is the life truly found. True self-interest, then, lies not in grasping our life for ourselves, but in losing it for Christ, who alone can give us life truly. We do well to lose our life for Christ's sake, trusting his paradox that in doing so we find it. We find true life not by grasping it but by losing it for Christ. The self-focused life loses what matters; the life given to Christ finds it. Deny yourself, take up your cross, and find your life in Christ. True self-interest is to lose our life for Christ, who gives it back.

That is worth taking to heart, for we find our life not by grasping it for ourselves but by losing it for Christ's sake, taking up our cross and following him. We can grasp to save our own life, living for ourselves and our own advantage, which seems the way to have life; but Jesus says this way loses it, while losing our life for his sake finds it. The way to true life is the cross. Do not grasp to save your life for yourself; lose it for Christ's sake, denying yourself and taking up your cross, and you will find it. Find your life by losing it for Christ's sake, denying yourself and taking up your cross to follow him, rather than grasping to save it for yourself, as Jesus taught that whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for his sake will find it, asking what it profits to gain the whole world and forfeit one's life; for our natural instinct is to save our own life, to grasp it, protect it, and live for ourselves and our own advantage, which seems the way to have life, but Jesus says the opposite is true, that whoever grasps to save his life this way will lose it while whoever loses his life for Christ's sake will find it, so that the way to truly find life is not to grasp and protect it for ourselves but to lose it, denying ourselves, taking up our cross, and following Christ, giving our lives to him and for him, since the self-focused life grasping to serve itself ends in losing what matters most while the life lost for Christ's sake is the life truly found, and true self-interest lies not in grasping our life for ourselves but in losing it for Christ, who alone can give us life truly.