Wednesday 2nd February 2005
If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me’ Mark 8:34
It’s easy to think of Lent as a time when we are called to deny ourselves something – chocolate, coffee, alcohol, daytime television, that sort of thing. I’m sure there’s value in any exercise of self-discipline (and it may do wonders for the waist-line), but these words of Jesus do not give a secondary object to the verb ‘deny’. He calls his followers simply to deny themselves, rather than to deny themselves something. The difference is quite important. In fact, it may be the difference between a Lent which becomes, in a memorable phrase of St Paul's, ‘self-imposed piety’ (Colossians 2:23) and one which is based on true Christian discipleship.
That raises the question, What does ‘denying myself’ mean? After all, ‘myself’ is who I am. Does Christ call me to cease to be the individual person God created me to be? The Gospel emphasis seems rather to be that Christ will enable me to fulfil my potential in a way which would be impossible without him. Jesus said that he came so that his ‘flock’ may have life – ‘life in all its fullness’ (John 10:10). There is in fact no conflict between the idea of self-denial, properly understood, and personal fulfilment. St Paul makes the point powerfully in his letter to the Galatians: ‘I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but it is Christ who lives in me. And the life I live now in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me’ (2:19,20). Or, in the words of Timothy Dudley-Smith’s hymn, ‘Self on the cross and Christ upon the throne’. That would be the essence of a truly Christian ‘self-denial’.
Canon David Winter is a former Diocesan Director of Evangelism,a broadcaster and author of many books including Message for the Millennium (BRF).