“Then He spoke to them all. ‘If
anyone wants to follow in my footsteps, he must give up all right to himself,
carry his cross every day, and remain close behind me. For the man who wants to
save his life will lose it, but the man who loses his life for my sake will
save it.’” Luke 9:23
Dying to self is a mindset, an attitude, a series of choices that culminate
in purposeful actions. Dying to self is the living equivalent of Christ’
sacrifice on the cross.
We identify with Christ death and
resurrection to life when we purposefully and progressively die to self.
“I am crucified with Christ.
Nevertheless, I live. Yet not I, but Christ lives in me. The life that I now
live in the flesh, I live by the faith of the Son of Man, Who loved me and gave Himself for me.” (Galatians 2:20)
Dying to self is depicted in several
of the Christian sacraments and traditions.
*In Baptism we die and are raised to
new life with Christ
*In Communion we celebrate Christ’
sacrifice; His literal dying to Self
*In Foot Washing we commemorate our
willingness to serve; to put away self in favor
of others
*In the ordination of a Christian
minister we set aside someone devoted to do God’s will,
...
rather than his own
Dying to self is the innate
recognition that this isn’t all there is. The act of dying to self is based on
the realization that the unseen and invisible is more real and enduring, than
that which we refer to as real, but which passes away.
I think that dying to self becomes
possible as a result of what are sometimes excruciating, even debilitating
experiences, since dying to self requires a process rather like the
purification of gold, or the creation of a diamond. The stressors involved in the
creation of a diamond are: Heat, Stress and Time; the same variables that are
prone to inflict us, and shape us into something beautiful, and a vessel fit
for the Lord’s table.
Dying to self has an end in mind. It
is not for nothing that we are called to this rather difficult process.
“I say to you unless a grain of
wheat falls to the ground and dies, it remains just a grain of wheat; but if it
dies it produces much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates
his life in this world will preserve it for eternal life.” (John 12:24-25)
Jim Elliot was one of five
missionaries who were inspired to reach out to a tribe of savage Indians in
Ecuador. The Auca’s were, up until that point, unreached by Western
Civilization. Over a period of time, Jim and his compatriots flew a light
airplane over the Auca villages, and dropped gifts. These gifts seemed to
be warmly received, as the natives seemed excited and grateful each time the
missionaries flew over.
Finally the missionaries decided to
make physical contact with the Auca tribe. On a given day, Nate Saint, one of
the five and a pilot, landed his little aircraft on a sandbar in the river next
to the village. We know that within a short period of time three Indians, two
men and a woman, approached the missionaries. And the rest is history.
Jim Elliot and the other four were
massacred on that sandbar. Their bodies were recovered later. A camera was
found which contained pictures of the natives and the missionaries; just prior
to their deaths.
Elizabeth Elliot, Jim’s very
courageous widow, made the decision to renew contact with the Auca tribe, and
later visited the same village, located on the river where her husband
sacrificed his life. Elizabeth was successful in presenting the Gospel to this
group of Indians.
Today the Auca’s are a peaceful
tribe. Today the majority of these once savage Indians have experienced the
saving knowledge of the Lord Jesus Christ. The chieftain who participated in
the killing of the five missionaries is a Christian minister. And amazingly, he
has ceremonially adopted the son of Nate Saint, one of the original five, Jim
Elliot said, “He is no fool who gives up that which he cannot keep to gain that
which he cannot lose.”
Dying to self is about deliberate
service. It involves a spirit of humility, and in such an environment pride
must die. Dying to self is about embracing Mission, and neglecting what this
world calls fair, or what we supposedly deserve. Dying to self is an attitude
that hardly notices if someone else is given the credit.
Dying to self involves the
realization that we are just passing through, that this is not our real and
final home, that we owe much to the giants on whose shoulders we stand, that a
heavenly agenda, not an earthly one, is everything.
Dying to self is reflected in the
lives of teachers who might have made more money in another profession, but who
have made the decision to nurture young lives. We see this quality in the life
of the volunteer fireman who guards over our safety while we sleep. There are
the countless parents and grandparents who dedicate their lives to raising good
and productive children. And there is that man or woman who
labors in obscurity, perhaps in a foreign land, with no other intention than to impact lives for
the kingdom; to make a difference that may only be apparent on the other side.
St. Francis’ prayer says it well,
“For it is in giving we receive. It is in pardoning that we are pardoned. It is
in dying to self that we are born to eternal life.”
“I think that it is the process of
dying that is so hard; not being dead. After all, in human terms, when a man dies, there is pain and
suffering. When death overtakes him, his physical suffering on this earth is
over.
A dead man has no apparent needs, a
dead man does not question God’s fairness, a dead man isn’t taken up with
heaping riches upon himself, a dead man doesn’t express bitterness, or question
why, a dead man has no qualms about anything.”
I
just finished reading a biography of a Catholic chaplain who died during the
Vietnam War. It is an inspiring volume of one man’s love for his fellow man,
and well worth reading.
Following
are several excerpts from the book surrounding the closing minutes of Father
Vincent Capodanno’s life. To provide some understanding of the setting, the
Marine unit which the priest served was involved in an intense fire fight with
North Vietnamese soldiers and the Viet Cong when the military minister sprang
into action.
“Corporal
Brooks saw Father Vincent move to the exposed area where Sergeant Peters was
lying. Suddenly, he was hit by shrapnel from a mortar round. Spots of blood
could be seen on his right shoulder, and he held his arms stiffly by his side.
He
was determined to do what he was there to do. He wasn’t going to let the enemy
interfere with his business. He would not get down because he wanted to look
the wounded in their eyes.”
“Sergeant
Howard Manfra was wounded five times and lay in severe pain on an exposed slope
between the crossfire of two NVA automatic weapons… Father Vincent managed to
reach the sergeant, calm him and drag him into a depression.”
“Father
Capodanno was wounded again in the late afternoon. He received shrapnel in his
arms, hand and legs, but refused medical attention. Though the priest could
have left the battlefield at any time, he wanted to stay with his men.”
“The
chaplain was crouched down under cover, but when he noticed a wounded medic, he
jumped up and ran over twenty feet to the soldier. I heard enemy machine gun fire
and the chaplain fell by the corpsman’s side. He actually jumped out in front
of the North Vietnamese machine gun which lay about 15 yards from the wounded.
He had begun to give medical attention
to the medic and three or four other wounded Marines when the machine gunner
opened up and killed him. He received 27 bullet wounds in the spine, neck and
head.”
“Thirty
two years after his death, his brother James Capodanno officially accepted the
Congressional Medal of Honor on behalf of his brother, Vincent, for his heroic
conduct on the battlefield.”
“Greater
love has no man than this that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John
15:13)
I
have shared two stories of men who, like Paul, not only figuratively died to
self, but who gave the last measure of devotion, and literally laid down their
lives for a greater cause than themselves. And though I have alluded to two men
who died on behalf of the Gospel, our task is to live on behalf of the Gospel.
And in order to be the most use to the Master, we must progressively die to
self.
In
closing, when I think of Dying to Self, my first thought is that of my favorite
of all Christian attributes; Selflessness. Christ must increase. I must
decrease. Dying to Self is a purposeful activity. (Only wrecks happen by
accident.) If we are to be of any use to the Master, we must allow Him to “act
upon” us, which may involve the direst of circumstances, some very negative and
lengthy in nature. While this is not a popular teaching, it is in dying to self
that we are given the greatest opportunity to fulfill God’s plan for our lives,
and impact those whom God sets in our pathway.
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