‘No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord’

No one takes my life from me, but I lay it down of my own accord.” From a certain perspective, it would seem that Jesus’ crucifixion and death was an appalling tragedy, one that perhaps could even have been avoided. Yet, several times during His public ministry, Jesus indicated that His passion and death were something He freely embraced. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states: “By embracing in His human heart the Father’s love for men, Jesus ‘loved them to the end,’ for ‘greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.’ In suffering and death His humanity became the free and perfect instrument of His divine love which desires the salvation of men. Indeed, out of love for his Father and for men, whom the Father wants to save, Jesus freely accepted his Passion and death” (609). 

The words and actions of Jesus touch on one of the fundamental paradoxes of Christianity: If you lay down your life freely for the sake of Christ, you will find the way to true life. Our free will is a gift by which we lay down our lives freely, dying to ourselves in order to live more fully for Christ. Contemporary society tries to convince us that the only way to achieve happiness is to live for yourself (think of Frank Sinatra’s I Did it My Way). The passage from self-determination to a life of self-emptying is a long journey, progressing daily through self-renunciation. In addition, an important key is to do this with tremendous humility. The Apostle Peter became all too familiar with a kind of self-reliant version of laying down his life: “I will lay down my life for you!” he boldly told Jesus at the Last Supper, only to suffer the humiliation of denying him three times. Yes, we are called to lay down our lives for Christ, and it is only with His grace that we can succeed at doing this more perfectly each day. 

Jesus goes on to say, “I have power to lay it down and power to take it up again.” Actually, only God himself could claim to do this and, in fact, accomplish it. By His death and resurrection, He has power over death. We have the ability to lay down our life for Christ – and indeed we must if we want a share in His inheritance – but we simply do not have the “power to take it up again.” This is something only God can do. Jesus does this for us first in our baptism: “If, then, we have died with Christ [in baptism], we believe that we shall also live with Him” (Rm 6:8). Then, when He calls us to pass from this life to eternal life, the Risen One will raise us up.

Interestingly, Jesus speaks the powerful words we have been reflecting on in the context of the Good Shepherd discourse (John 10) that: “I am the good shepherd … and I lay down my life for my sheep … I lay it down freely … I have power to lay it down, and have power to take it up again.” The link between these is masterfully represented in the earliest Christian art found in the catacombs (~350 AD), where Christ is depicted as a shepherd with the sheep on his shoulder. He is the shepherd who not only accompanies them “through the valley of the shadow of death” (Ps 23:4) but also, in fact, ‘takes them up’ on his shoulders and leads them over the waters of death, since He has power to raise them up. Certainly, the early Christians found in this image both inspiration and hope. That same faith and hope has carried on even to our day, for Psalm 23 is by far the most widely proclaimed Psalm at Christian funerals. Furthermore, we pray in the funeral intercessions: “In baptism (name) received the light of Christ. Scatter the darkness now and lead him/her over the waters of death.”  

During this holy season of Lent and Easter, let us be reminded that Jesus freely gave His life for us and took it up again so that we could know how to lay down our life for Him and so raise us up in Him through baptism. He is the Good Shepherd who will lead us over the waters of death and carry us to our eternal home.