Lose Your Life
A Poem after Jesus' Invitation in Matthew 10:24-39
“Those who find their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake will find it.”
Matthew 10:39
Lose Your Life
After Matthew 10:24-39
Lose your life—
I mean it.
Let Light expose
all illusions.
Lose your life—
find it.
Find it in kneeling service,
in cross bearing, in glad surrender,
and the strange and certain walk
of being a pilgrim
far from home.
Lose your life—
I mean it.
You want Heaven?
It's the flowers of redemption
blooming in ruined and forgotten towns
where Christ walks.
Lose your life. Lose your life. Lose it.
Abandon all and enter
into Christ.
—
The final line of this week’s poem drew inspiration from Thomas à Kempis’s The Imitation of Christ, where he writes in the voice of Jesus in chapter 56, “My dear friend, the more you can leave yourself behind, the more you will be able to enter into me.”
This week’s poem took many forms throughout the week. I was constantly starting over. Luckily, I was moved by a sermon from Bishop Héctor A. Burgos-Núñez during a service of licensing, commissioning, and ordination at the North Georgia Annual Conference of The United Methodist Church. (I can’t find the link just yet!)
This poem was perhaps hard to finalize because I had to consider my own willingness to take up the cross of Christ and imitate Christ. I didn’t want to just write about it.
These days, it is so tempting to put our ego first and try to find shelter in the public’s gaze, and be well thought of. But what good does that do? Self-emptying gets us closer to God and closer to people. That’s where I’d like to be. Do we want to be on a platform and have many followers and get lots of attention (that often quickly fades or is stressful to maintain), or would we rather find shelter in the riches of knowing and following Jesus and take part in healing and renewing our battered and beautiful world?
*May the grammatical errors and typos in this poem and reflection proclaim that these are my words and thoughts and not generated by AI/LLMs.