'I will lay down my life for Thy sake.' What a strange inversion of
parts is here! 'Lay down thy life for My sake'—with Calvary less than
four-and-twenty hours off, when Christ laid down His life for Peter's
sake. Peter was guilty of an anachronism in the words, for the time did
not come for the disciple to die for his Lord till after the Lord had
died for His disciple. But he was right in feeling, though he felt it
only in regard to an external and physical act, that to follow Jesus,
it was necessary to be ready to die for Him. And that is the great
truth which underlies and half redeems the rashness of this vow, and
needs to be laid upon our hearts, if we are ever to be the true
followers of the Master. Death for Christ is necessary if we are to
follow Him. There is nothing that a man can do deeply and truly, in a
manner worthy of a Christian, which has not underlying it, either the
death of self-will and all the godless nature, or if need be the actual
physical death, which is a much smaller matter. You cannot follow
Christ except you die daily. No man has ever yet trodden in His
footsteps except on condition of, moment by moment, slaying self,
suppressing self, abjuring self, breaking the connection of self with
the material world, and yielding up himself as a living sacrifice, in a
living death, to the Lord of life and death. Do not think that
'following Christ' is a mere sentimental expression for so much
morality as we can conveniently get into our daily life. But remember
that here, with all his rashness, with all his ignorance, with all his
superficiality, the Apostle has laid hold upon the great permanent, but
alas! much-forgotten principle, that to die is essential to following
Jesus.
This daily dying, which is a far harder thing to do than to go to a
cross once, and have done with it—was impossible for Peter then, though
he did not know it. His vow was a rash one, because the laying down of
Christ's life, for Peter's sake and for ours, had not yet been
accomplished. _There_ is the motive-power by which, and by which alone,
drawn in gratitude, and melted down from all our selfishness, we, too,
in our measure and our turn, are able to yield ourselves, in daily
crucifixion of our evil, and daily abnegation of self-trust, and
self-pleasing, and self-will, to the Lord that has died for us. He must
lay down His life for our sakes, and we must know He has done it, and
rest upon Him as our great Sacrifice and our atoning Priest, or else we
shall never be so loosed from the tyranny of self as to be ready to
live by dying, and to die that we may live for His sake. 'I go to Rome
to be crucified again' were the words in which the old legend braced
the fugitive and made a hero of him, and sent him back to be crucified
like his Lord and to offer up his physical life, as he had long since
offered up his self-will and his arrogance to the Lord that had died
for him.
O Lord our Father! help us, we beseech Thee, that we may be of the
sheep that hear the Shepherd's voice and follow Him. Strengthen our
faith in that dear Lord who has laid down His life for us, that we may
daily, by self-denial and self-sacrifice, lay down our lives for Him,
and follow Him here in all the footsteps of His love.