原文|Bishop Barron
翻译|Carrie

朋友们，在今天的福音中，耶稣概括了成为基督徒的代价：“谁若愿意跟随我，该弃绝自己，背着自己的十字架来跟随我。” 我们对于十字架的态度非常漠然，因为长久以来我们只把它看作是一个宗教符号。

 

但是基督时代最初的九百多年间，艺术家们都不会去描绘十字架，因为那种残酷程度太过不堪入目。对于梅尔·吉布森的电影《耶稣受难记》中的暴力场景，你怎样评价都行，但在描绘古罗马十字架酷刑的艺术作品中，该片可能是最接近现实的。

 

但重要的一点是：我们通过十字架要看到的不只是一种暴力的展示，而是我们自身的丑陋。是什么把耶稣钉在十字架上？愚蠢、愤怒、疑心、体制不公、朋友的背叛、遗弃、难以言表的残忍、诿过于人和恐惧。换句话说，我们所有的病态都在耶稣的十字架上展现出来。有鉴于此，没有人能随声附和当下流行的人生观，即“我好而你也不赖”。因此，我们说耶稣的十字架是天主对全人类的审判。

 

Friends, in our Gospel for today Jesus outlines the cost of becoming his disciple: "Whoever wishes to come after me must deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me." We have a very antiseptic view of the cross, for we have seen it for so long as a religious symbol.

 

But for the first nine centuries or so of the Christian dispensation, artists didn't depict the cross, for it was just too brutal. Say what you want about the violence in Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ, it probably came as close as any work of art to showing the reality of a Roman crucifixion.

 

But here's the point: we are meant to see on that cross, not simply a violent display, but rather our own ugliness. What brought Jesus to the cross? Stupidity, anger, mistrust, institutional injustice, betrayal of a friend, denial, unspeakable cruelty, scapegoating, and fear. In other words, all of our dysfunction is revealed on that cross. In the light of the cross, no one can say the popular philosophy of our times, "I'm okay and you're okay." This is why we speak of the cross as God's judgment on the world.

 

朋友们，今天的福音包含了对于基督宗旨的最优美又最可怕的总结之一：“我实实在在告诉你们：一粒麦子如果不落在地里死了，仍只是一粒；如果死了，才结出许多子粒来。”

 

人们把希望寄托在其身上的这一位却在谈论落在地上而死。而他接下来的话更加奇怪。“爱惜自己性命的，必要丧失性命；在现世憎恨自己性命的，必要保存性命入于永生。” 说什么？！

 

正当我们把你放在崇高的地位时，你却在谈论跌落地上；正当我们向你表示你已经功成名就时，你却在谈论憎恨现世的性命。

 

要理解这些话，我们就得回到落在地上的那粒麦子。没错，种子内含生命，但它只有献出自己的生命并且融入泥土里才能生长。种子必须裂开、崩溃。

 

耶稣的征兆在十字架上。祂通过死亡达到圣容显现。

 

Friends, Our Gospel for today contains one of the most beautiful and terrible summations of the Christian message: "Amen, amen, 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."

 

And now this one upon whom the crowds had pinned their hopes is speaking of falling to the earth and dying. And then it gets stranger. "The man who loves his life loses it, while the man who hates his life in this world, preserves it to life eternal." Come again?!

 

Just when we are raising you up, you're talking about falling down; just when we are showing you that your life has come to its fulfillment, you're talking about hating this life.

 

To understand what all this means, we should go back to the grain of wheat that falls to the earth. A seed's life is inside, yes, but it's a life that grows by being given away and mixing with the soil around it. It has to crack open, be destroyed.

 

Jesus' sign is the sign of the cross. The death that leads to transfiguration.