24th Sunday of Ordinary Time, Year B
Jesus in today’s gospel reading from the Holy Gospel according to St. Mark, chapter 8, verse 27 to 35 taught His disciples and us, what it truly means to be His disciple. In this gospel reading, Jesus gives us the demands of discipleship. What are these demands of discipleship? They are as follows:
The first demand of discipleship as taught by Jesus is to acknowledge and know Him. With His question to His disciples, “But who do you say that I am?” Jesus wanted to know if His disciples really knew who He was. And as we can tell from their responses, they didn’t know who He was until Peter said to Him in reply, “You are the Christ.” Knowing Christ entails listening to His word, understanding His word and accepting His word. Do you know who Christ is? Who is He to you? How have you acknowledged Him through your words and actions in the world today? Are you truly listening to His word? Have you really making any significant effort to understand His word? Have you accepted His word?
The second demand of discipleship is denying oneself to be a disciple of Christ, that is Self denial. Self denial is the denial of one's own desires, interests and needs, because you believe it is morally good for you not to do them or have them. Self denial is a form of self-sacrifice for the greater glory of God’s name. Do you practice self denial? What have you sacrificed recently for God, for all His blessings, graces and mercies upon you? What is that which you like to have or do that you have given up for the sake of Christ or so that you can grow in your faith in Him?
The third demand of discipleship as taught by Jesus today in the gospel reading is being ready to take up our crosses daily. Taking up our crosses as explained by Jesus when He talked about what He will experience in the hands of the elders, the chief priests, and the scribes means being ready to suffer, be rejected and be killed. Some of the crosses we have to carry in life as children of God includes facing trials, pain, criticism, humiliation, sickness, and failure for the sake of Christ and His gospel. This is exactly what Prophet Isaiah emphasized in today’s first reading with the story of the suffering servant, who prefigures the suffering of Christ, when he said, “I gave my back to those who beat me, my cheeks to those who plucked my beard; my face I did not shield from buffets and spitting.” What are the crosses in your life that you have to carry daily? How are you carrying this cross or these crosses? Do you carry them grudgingly with anger and frustration, or do you carry them with total resignation and trust in God?
The fourth and last demand of discipleship as taught by Jesus in today’s gospel reading is to follow Him. Following Christ means to become like Him, that is, walking where He walks, doing what He did, and teaching what He taught. This is exactly why St. James in today’s second reading calls on us to demonstrate and live out our faith from our works, because “faith of itself, if it does not have works, is dead.”
My dear brothers and sisters, as Jesus reminds us of the demands of discipleship today, let us answer our call to discipleship better by knowing and acknowledging Christ in our lives; by denying our own desires, interests and needs for the greater glory of God’s name; by taking up our crosses daily and by following Christ as we live out our faith through our works.
