Apparently today is Collop Monday, traditionally the last day to cook bacon before Lent. Bacon would be salted or hung to preserve it until lent was over, the bits that were too small to preserve would be fried and served with eggs on this Monday. So today you can have a Full English Breakfast and treat it as preparation for Lent.
Talking of Bacon and Eggs: A pig and a hen are discussing how they can help to feed the hungry; the hen says, ‘We’ll provide bacon and eggs.’ The pig thought about the suggestion and said, ‘There’s only one problem with your bacon and eggs idea. For you, it only requires a contribution, but from me, it will mean total commitment!’
“Then he called the crowd to him along with his disciples and said: ‘Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses their life for me and for the gospel will save it. What good is it for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit their soul?’”
Mark 8: 34-36 [NIV]
Why would we want to follow someone who asks us to lose our life? It is not instinctive, possibly not even within our human nature, which tends to be self-preserving, self-seeking. Sometimes this passage is taken as a call to asceticism, (abstinence from worldly pleasures, for the purpose of pursuing spiritual goals), but self-denial does not mean seeking or embracing suffering as if suffering is redemptive in itself. Instead, Jesus calls us to embrace a new identity (“Follow me”, “for me and for the gospel”); our life centred on him. It is not self-annihilation, but life redefined, new life. Jesus wants us to embrace a God focused life, a Jesus focused life, which brings greater reward than a self-centred life. But there will be trials and suffering on the way; self-denial and life redefinition comes with risks. If we walk in a different direction to the crowd we will bump into them as we go. It takes faith to walk in this direction, but if we do, we will find life is extraordinary.
Guy Mowbray
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