By Father Casey

The tryptic is closed and covered for Lent, but hopefully you can recall two of the small pictures below the large image of the Transfigured Christ. On the left, Jesus is leading Peter, James, and John up the mountain, pointing toward the summit where his divinity will be revealed. On the right, Jesus is leading them, dazzled and dumbstruck, back down.

As amazing as it must have been to witness the Transfiguration, it didn't help the disciples grasp any better the nature of Jesus' mission. For not long after they leave the mountain, Jesus tells them how he will suffer, be rejected, and killed, but Peter would have none of it. The gospels say that Peter "rebuked" Jesus for talking this way.

Which results, of course, with Peter getting rebuked himself. "You don't know what you're talking about, Peter. Because not only do I have to die, but following me means taking up your own cross, too. It means denying yourself, as I will be denied. And it means losing your life, just like I will lose mine."

For those who have been around the church for any length of time, we may have heard this passage often enough to soften its sharp edges. But I hope we won't let it become too dull to slice into our souls and open our hearts. Because this teaching holds in it one of the great truths about life, a kind of divine equation, you might say. The equation goes like this: "Those who want to save their life will lose it. And those who lose their life will save it." In other words, the more we try to bottle up and preserve our life, the more we conserve it and hold on to it and protect it, the less of life we will actually experience and enjoy; and the more of our life that we give away, the more we let it flow out through our fingertips, the more of life we will actually experience and enjoy.

Think about it this way. Imagine hiking high up into the mountains, where you come upon a beautiful, crystal-clear spring. Water is bubbling out of the side of the mountain, like Moses had just been by moments before and struck it with his staff. Water splashes into a tiny pool and then dances down a little chain of smooth rocks. It's so beautiful that you can't help but reach your hand into the pool and take a deep drink, and it tastes like purity itself. Before you go, you decide to fill a bottle with some of it, to enjoy later. Then you hike back down the mountain, back to home and work and life.

And a week or two later, you finally get around to unloading your pack, and you find that bottle inside. With joy, you take a drink, expecting that same taste of purity, but somehow not the same. It's still drinkable, for sure, it's still water, but it's different. It's lost its essence, because it's shut up inside a plastic container instead of dancing down the side of a mountain.

We can try to protect and conserve our life. We can do everything imaginable to make sure we're safe, that every eventuality has been considered, that every risk has been managed. We can try to stockpile our life like a 401K. But if we do, we shouldn't expect to enjoy it very much, nor for too many folks to notice when we're gone. Because the holy math of Jesus' "cruciform" equation will always be true: the more you try to hold onto life, the less life you'll have, and the more of your life you give away, the more you'll actually have.

This divine maxim has been on my mind as I've read the news about the death of Russian activist Alexei Navalny. A fierce critic of the authoritarian Russian government, he led a grassroots democracy movement there for years. After surviving a nearly fatal poisoning in 2020, he chose to return to Russia from his recovery in Germany, though everyone knew what awaited him there. Sure enough, he was immediately arrested, tried for a variety of fabricated charges, and sentenced to nearly 20 years in one of Russia's infamous Siberian prisons. Just last week, he was found dead in his cell.

An essential aspect of Navalny's story, which has been underreported, is his Christian faith.[1] He converted from atheism as an adult, and he was clear that his faith undergirded his activism. It cultivated his courage and patience in fighting against a seemingly unbeatable system, and it offered him a larger perspective in which to locate his own suffering. Ultimately, it is what enabled him to choose to lay down his life for the sake of others. He chose to embrace that divine equation, and the effects of his remarkable and sacrificial life reveal once more that equation's perfect truth. In giving his life away for the sake of the kingdom, the more of it he actually experienced and created.

We may never face the circumstances of Alexei Navalny, but let us not overlook our own opportunities to embrace the cruciform equation. When our life is rooted in the deep wellspring of Jesus Christ, even as we pour ourselves out for the sake of others, we will have enough, and even as we risk and sacrifice and give ourselves away, the life we save will be our own.

[1] Check out "Don't Ignore Alexei Navalny's Christian Faith," by Maggie Phillips in America Magazine, February 22, 2024.