By Georgios Tryfonopoulos, Theologian from Aristotle University of Thessaloniki
Α man came up to Jesus and asked Him with burning desire what he must do to get eternal life. Being certain of everything that he has so far, he sought to find something more, something that will make him perfect.
And His Lord responds by revealing Himself as God, whom the young man himself martyred by calling Him Love. He sees in his heart, the enthusiasm in his soul, and He knows that this man obeys the Mosaic Law since he was a child. He is so devout that the Mosaic law has become the marker in his life. However, He knows deep down inside that something is missing, this impersonal observance of the Law has brought him in an impasse, as all his individual virtues and assets were unable to respond to the great existential question of eternity, to become perfect.
He mentions that he obeys all those rules from an early age. The Omniscient God knows that, so He tells him to keep the commandments and then lists those rules one by one. He wants to lead him to Him, to reveal Himself as the eternal and true life.
Each commandment, along with whatever virtue it cultivates, is a meeting point with Christ, neither an end in itself nor a center of life. Besides, God Himself gave the tablets of the Law to His people in order not to run the risk of getting lost, not to forget that the only goal of every person is to live in harmony with God.
Whenever there is deviation and interruption of communion with Him, (for example, when one harms another person or when one worships the idols), then the knowledge of the commandments, the will of God will lead the people to God and it will be the beginning of a return, repentance before God and reconciliation with the brother.
The commandments has come to constitute for the rich a new end in itself, through which they could achieve self-fulfillment that would enhance their spiritual superiority. Even eternal life had received economic connotations, which is why he uses the verb “get”, precisely because he regards God as a giver and evaluator of every spiritual achievement since it will surely be a reward, or if not enough is needed for to get the eternal life.
So, when Christ asks him to leave everything, to overcome the obstacle of the wealth that keeps him away from eternal life, bound to the certainty and safety, he leaves in sorrow. The Lord’s encouragement to open to uncertainty and to lose everything for Him is totally alien to him. He is not accustomed to giving himself and to be offered without consideration.
The sacrifice without reward, without winning anything but Christ, being the 13th student and apostle, as those who left everything for Him and followed Him, in the unknown without calculation, as they saw that He is the one who has spoken of the Eternal Life, because He Himself is the Road, also the Truth, also the Life.
Finally, it is a sacrifice to be a follower of Christ, to live with Him, to have the heroic decision of leaving yourself, to overcome your imaginary spiritual superiority. To follow Him on the Cross, where you do not win but you lose crucifying your ego and finding yourself in Christ, in the face of the brother. You liberate yourself from everything that keeps you bound to the earth, closed and introverted, and you open up to the love of Christ.
It is enough for the wealth of the heart to be Him, being the center of your search, above virtues, good deeds, without buts and ifs, without calculations; whenever He asks you to leave everything aside and follow Him.
If a chain, a cause, a small cause keeps you tied you can not move, you will be hooked on it. Bound to this passion, still to the virtue, to every human being, everything that you hold in higher esteem than Christ, it will be impossible to follow Him, He will not have a place in your life, because your heart will always be where its desire, the center of its existence, is.
