Catechesis Notes for the Week — Let Him Deny Himself — This week’s verse is Jesus’ call to the baptismal life: “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me” (Luke 9:23). “Self-denial is central to faith in Christ, and such self-denial is the denial that a person’s own good works can in any way save him. It is God who works ‘daily contrition and repentance’ in us through His Word of Law and Gospel, so that we deny ourselves and our own righteousness and cling by faith to Christ alone for salvation. ‘Daily contrition and repentance’ is painful to us because it involves the killing of the flesh with all the appetites and desires of the Old Adam. As Christ suffered and died for our sin, so we who are joined to Christ by Baptism into His death die daily to self that we might walk in the new life of faith in Christ. The Law continually kills—crushing all our religious hypocrisy, self-righteousness, and pride; and the Gospel continually makes us alive—reviving repentant faith, comforting the troubled conscience, and giving us the strength to live in the freedom and joy of Christ’s forgiveness.” [Excerpt from Lutheran Catechesis: Catechist Edition, p. 230b]CP240128