Crucify Yourselves
This doesn't sound pleasant at all. I thought religion was supposed to make me feel good! Actually, I use to think that way until I grew up!
The radical message of Normal Orthodoxy is, frankly, overwhelming IF you take it seriously.
The Message is Good News; it is. But this “Good News” is only “good” IF you are willing to embrace the hard medicine of reorienting your life away from indulging your desires toward the greater reality of tamed passions and true human meaning.
This is going to crucify you!
I recently spoke to a 15-year-old man about his interest in Orthodoxy and asked him what he thought about the cross he wore around his neck. He told me it was meant to mark him as a follower of Jesus, who was crucified for us. I congratulated this young man on his answer and then pressed him on what Jesus meant when He commanded us to “take up” our cross and follow Him.
He struggled to answer, and then I thought I’d help him. To take up our cross is the beginning of dealing with the reality that the only purpose of a cross is to kill you!
In other words, being a Normal Orthodox Christian means coming to terms with the fact that something has to die in me before I can ever hope to have the new life Christ offers. I have to be willing to die to everything unlike Christ, if I’m going to truly experience what I was made for in the first place!
This way of living is what the Faith is all about.
Look at our lesson today in Galatians 5:22-26; 6:1-2:
Brethren, the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such there is no law. And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live by the Spirit, let us also walk by the Spirit. Let us have no self-conceit, no provoking of one another, no envy of one another. Brethren, if a man is overtaken in any trespass, you who are spiritual should restore him in a spirit of gentleness. Look to yourself, lest you too be tempted. Bear one another’s burdens, and so fulfill the law of Christ.
Significantly, St. Paul tells these Galatian Christians to “Look to yourself, lest you be tempted.” This is no mistake because avoiding temptation requires me to be attentive to my brokenness and my tendency to be asleep until it’s too late to give in. Knowing myself well enough to see the temptation coming sets me up to avoid the trap.
St. Paul’s wisdom to the Galatian Church, a church of many Gentiles who were not raised with the Laws of the Jews, is that there is an internal formation that matters more! He insists that internally forming the “Fruit of the Spirit” is superior to any lawmaking or external control. He even says after listing the internal “fruit” of a vibrant relationship with Christ that “there is no law” is necessary to those who have embraced this internal character.
But how does one develop such an internal character? Brace yourselves!
You have to “crucify” yourself! WHAT? Who would do such a thing TO THEMSELVES? Those who humbly accept the reality of a life lived free from the addictions of the passions and desires. Look at all the lawbreakers in our society. They seem to believe what they want is more important than peace or their neighbor’s desires. They are so undisciplined in their inner life that they allow their desires to master them. They are a slave to their wants. They are not free. They need external disciplines from society to control them because they refuse or can’t control themselves. What a horrible and infantile life! Demanding a false freedom to seek to indulge my passions is no freedom at all.
But those who willingly “crucify” (that means actively kill) their desires and passions because they are following Jesus need no external controls to govern their lives. They are the masters of their desires, not slaves. This is the very definition of spiritual maturity and the goal of all who are serious in their spiritual pursuits.
Those who control and discipline their desires and passions can help those around them and even restore their brethren who have “lost control” of their desires. A person who has “crucified” their desires and learned to master their passions through the wisdom of the Faith's lifestyle is a source of strength, peace, harmony, and joy to the whole world.
Conversely, those who remain slaves to their passions are the source of dissension, fighting, and childish addiction in society.
No law is necessary IF you continue doing the work to submit yourself to God in Christ and allow the wisdom of the Faith to change your lifestyle.
The Orthodox faith is the perfect “science” of the soul to transform you so you don’t need rules to live a righteous life. You have already had your desires transformed so that you want God above all other desires.
If you’re like me, you must confess, “Yeah, I still need the rules.” But I pray I’m headed toward a mature spiritual life where I no longer need them!
No wonder the Church gives us the stories of the saints to see how radical and confrontational this message of taking up our cross to follow Christ is. Too many of us live in the delusion of comfort and ease, and we fool ourselves into a mediocre faith, thinking that’s all we need. But the Church gives us stories like St. John the Hut-Dweller to invite us to consider a reset to our idea of “Normal.” St. John was born to wealthy parents in Constantinople in the 5th century. His father was a Roman senator in the Capital, and his family had servants and a life of privilege. At 12, St. John was consumed with wanting to live only for Christ as a monk, so he snuck away from his parent’s beautiful home to live in a nearby monastery called the Monastery of the Unsleeping. After six years as a monk, he longed to see his parents again, so he left the monastery and lived in a small hut near his parent’s house. Most of his former servants thought he was a bum and derided him, but St. John stayed true to his spiritual discipline and prayed for his family constantly. He only revealed his true identity to his parents when he was given knowledge of his impending death. Within a few months, he reposed in peace in 450.
Today, are you crucifying your passions and desires or indulging them? Are you unable to live your life free from necessary external controls because you are still addicted to your passions? Know that the fruit of the Spirit grows in the lives of those who willingly, humbly, and purposefully embrace the disciplines of the Normal Orthodox Faith to see the character of Jesus created in them. Tame your passions by the wisdom of the Faith and watch as the fruit of the Spirit grows in your life!
P.S. Since you had with fervor longed after the Lord from your youth, * you left the world with its delights and nobly did strive in valiant ascetic deeds. * You did pitch your hut before the gates of your parents; * you did break the demons' snares, O all-blessed Father. * And therefore, as is meet, has Christ God glorified you, O John.
Fr. Barnabas Powell is the parish priest at Sts. Raphael, Nicholas, and Irene Greek Orthodox Church in Cumming, GA. He is also the founder of Faith Encouraged Ministries and produces the Faith Encouraged Daily Devotional on Substack. Watch the Faith Encouraged YouTube Channel here - https://www.youtube.com/@FaithEncouragedTV
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