(Rev. Dr. Daniel Thomas)

When He had called the people to Himself, with His disciples also, He said to them, 'Whoever desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me.' Mark 8:34 (NKJV)

In this passage Jesus clearly lays down certain conditions of service for people who would like to follow him. First condition is that one has to deny his own self. What does that mean? One scholar suggested that one have to deny ones own self as Peter denied Jesus at the courtyard of the high priest. When a maid recognized him she asked Peter "Are you not one of his disciples?" Peter flatly refused her finding and said firmly, "I do not know that man". That is the kind of denial one is supposed to do about his self and he should be able to say, "I do not know my self". In other words one should be able to ignore ones own self as if it did not exist. But often we treat our self as a very important entity of our being. There is an interesting passage in Gitanjali, the author Rabindranath Tagore says how ashamed he is of his own self.

I came out alone on my way to my tryst.
But who is this who follows me in the silent dark?
I move aside to avoid his presence
But I escape him not. He makes the dust rise from the earth
With his swagger, he adds his loud voice to every word that I utter
He is my own little self, my lord, he knows no shame;
But I am ashamed to come to thy door in his company.

Jesus demands that we should avoid the company of our own self.

Is it possible for us to get rid of our self? Unfortunately, the society in which we live today the self is boosted or promoted. The culture encourages us to promote the importance of self. For example if you go to a gas station, you will be encouraged to use the self- service. Similarly if you go to a bank, there too you are encouraged to use the machine to serve yourself. In case if you go to restaurant there you have opportunity to serve yourself - the Buffet. Self -glorification is the style of modernity.

In Greek mythology there is an interesting story about a handsome youth that fell in love with himself. One day when looked into a pool of clear water he saw the reflection of his own body. That was a fascinating experience for him. He was so attracted to the beauty of his own body that he kept on looking at it for days without food or water. Finally collapsed and died. The moral of the story is that one should not waste his time thinking about him but in our modern society we see just the opposite. People spend time thinking about themselves. Modeling is a big business in modern society. The models will be concentrating every minute on their image. Some of them even do not eat properly and they think that if they put on more weight they will loose their job. Anorexia is a serious problem among models. Self-image is very important in our society. One industry, which is thriving in our modern society, is the industry of cosmetic products. In nutshell, from very early childhood one is trained to love ones own self and not love others.

But Jesus made it very clear that denial of ones own self is a pre-requisite to follow him.

The second condition, which Jesus presented, was that one would take up his own cross if one were interested in following him. Jesus knew what crucifixion meant. When he was a lad of eleven years of age, Judas a leading zealot had led a rebellion against Romans and he raided the royal armory at Sepphoris which was only four miles from Nazareth. Roman vengeance came suddenly. The whole town Sepphoris was burned to the ground and large number of the inhabitants were sold as slaves and almost two thousand of the rebels were crucified on crosses which were set in lines along the road as a warning to others who were contemplating on the same course of action. To take up ones cross means to be prepared to face things like this for loyalty to Jesus. How many Christians will be ready to suffer for Christ? Their number may be significantly small. Jesus is demanding every one of us to surrender our own self so that we gain our soul.