What I want to spend time focusing on this morning is why this is such a problem for us as humans and why none of us are immune to falling prey to numbing ourselves out. Some might argue that the reason why this happens is really a matter of biology, where humans are wired to seek out pleasure and avoid pain. For most of human history, life was very hard. Not only was life was short, but you were always struggling to survive. You literally had to toil with the earth to make sure you could feed yourself and your family.

This reality is where the advice comes from that we read in Ecclesiastes this morning where the author says, “So I commend enjoyment, for there is nothing better for people under the sun than to eat, and drink, and enjoy themselves, for this will go with them in their toil through the days of life that God gives them under the sun.” In other words, life is mostly challenge and struggle, so it’s important to get enjoyment while you can. The advice from the author is to drink alcohol to feel good whenever you are free from the responsibilities of your work.

And I think that this advice is how most people live their lives. It’s a pattern adopted by a lot of people. A lot of people work hard during the week so that on Friday, Saturday and Sunday they can drink and feel good all weekend. And I’m not here to judge you if that’s what you do. Like I said, it’s a pattern adopted by a lot of people.

But even if you don’t drink, a lot of people look forward to the weekend because they watch endless amounts of Netflix or scroll social media on their phone mindlessly for hours. I hate it when I sit down to check something on my phone and then something distracts and before I know it, I’ve wasted an hour looking at the dumbest stuff. Often, when I finally regain the self-control to put my phone away, I think to myself, “What a waste of time! What else could I have done with that hour of my life?”

But that tendency to escape from our current reality is prominent in all of us. It is an inherently human trait. In my opinion, one of the best quotes about this predicament comes from my favorite philosopher/theologian by the name of Soren Kierkegaard. In his famous book Either/Or he says: “This is what is sad when one contemplates human life, that so many live out their lives in quiet lostness…they live, as it were, away from themselves and vanish like shadows.”

I’ve spent years contemplating this quote from Kierkegaard. In fact, I created an entire feature length film around this quote. It was called Shadows, from the last word in this quote. So, let’s take a moment and parse this out because I think there’s some important wisdom to be found in his words. The first aspect of this quote is his assertion that most people live out their lives in quiet lostness. What does he mean by this—quiet lostness?

Well, what does it mean to be lost? To be lost means, you don’t know where you’re going. I’m sure at some point or another, everyone in here has been lost. Perhaps you’ve been driving somewhere and took a wrong turn? Perhaps you’ve been hiking through the woods and you’ve lost your bearings? Wherever it has happened to you, I want you to think back to that moment and imagine what it felt like for you. I know that for me, when I’ve been lost by myself, I feel disoriented, scared and horribly alone.

What Kierkegaard is saying is that this is how most of us live our entire lives. We walk around disoriented, scared and horribly alone. Now, you might be sitting there thinking to yourself, “Alex, that’s not how I feel at all. I mean, perhaps on occasion, but most of the time I feel just fine.” Kierkegaard would disagree. He would say that if you dig down and do a lot of self-examination, you will discover that at the core of who you are, there is this distinct feeling of lostness.

And the truth is, we work really hard to distract ourselves from that feeling. In fact, we all live our lives in such a way that we appear to be the exact opposite of lost. We all pretend like we’re in control: I’m doing what I want to do when I want to do it. How can I be lost if I’m in control of my life? But that’s just the thing, the control you exert over your life is just an illusion to hide the fact that you feel this deep sense of lostness on the inside.

Do you know how I can prove that to you? Why do you think that so many people drink so much on the weekends or spend all that time on Netflix or on their phones? The reason why we are drawn to those behaviors is because they numb out that feeling of lostness. And you can see that in the next part of his quote: “They live, as it were, away from themselves.” That’s what those behaviors do. They detach you from the feelings inside of your body because those feelings are inherently uncomfortable and we don’t like dealing with them.

And so what happens is, over time, we keep pushing away that lost feeling over and over again until, eventually, we wake up and our lives have passed us by. We’ve spent so much time numbing out that feeling of lostness that we’ve never really experienced the beauty and sorrow of life and so, when we die, it’s like we were never really here in the first place. Our lives are like shadows. Here today and gone tomorrow with no discernable impact on the world because we were too afraid to truly live and experience life.

So the only way you can escape from being a shadow is by confronting the lostness and that’s what I want to spend the rest of this sermon talking about. How do we confront the lostness that is buried deep inside of all of us so that we can truly experience the beauty of life? I’ll tell you right now, confronting the lostness inside of us is actually one of the hardest things a person can do, because the cure is a bit paradoxical.

We read today from the gospel of Mark. This particular quote from Jesus is found at the direct center of Mark’s gospel. Mark’s gospel is 16 chapters and this is found at the end of chapter 8. This is meant to indicate to the reader that this is really the most central of all Jesus’ teachings. Jesus says, “If any want to become my followers, let them deny themselves and take up their cross and follow me. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it.”

Most people who read this scripture don’t understand what Jesus is talking about. What does he mean that you have to deny yourself? What does he mean that you have to lose your life in order to save it? Well, let’s parse it out because once you can wrap your mind around this particular teaching of Jesus, you will also have figured out the cure to getting rid of the lostness that is buried deep inside of all of us.

To understand what Jesus is saying, you first have to appreciate that our natural propensity is looking for our own self-interest. I think we can all agree that there are certain basic needs that every human has – food, shelter, clothing. At our core, we are programmed to seek out these things because, without them, we will have a tough time surviving. These needs are what propel us to work so hard because we want to make sure these things will be present. But these needs are also the reason why humans are, at their core, very self-centered.

You might not consider yourself to be a very selfish person, but I guarantee you that if I take away your food, your shelter and your clothing, you will become selfish very quickly. Indeed, what many people fail to recognize is that our drive for success in the world is really a reflection of those three basic needs. The more successful you are, the more those needs recede into the background of our lives so we don’t have to think about them.

In fact, these three needs are the reason why people are so reluctant to share their money. There is more than enough money in the world to end poverty, but we have this primal worry in the back of our minds that one day we may not have enough to care for ourselves, so we hold on tight to our money just in case something happens.

This is what denial of self is all about. It’s about letting go of those three worries and not letting those needs rule your life. In fact, those three worries are integrally tied to those feelings of lostness. You would think that someone who has millions and millions of dollars would never worry, but in fact, the opposite is true. The more money you have, the more the desire for money intensifies. You can never have enough because that lost feeling inside of you is really a feeling of insecurity. It’s a bottomless pit that can never be filled.   

So, when you die to yourself, when you let go of the concerns of the world, there’s a new person who rises in place of the old. This new person is not concerned with serving themselves. This new person is only concerned with being selfless, with loving others. This new person finds their worth and value not in gaining for themselves, but in gaining for others. I refer to this way of being in the world as the resurrected life.

The resurrection is when a person dies and comes back to life as something entirely new. Jesus is the ultimate example of this from the gospel story. However, the resurrection is not limited to Jesus. Everyone who follows Jesus’ teaching from Mark chapter 8 can experience the resurrection. Those who have discovered the resurrected life are no longer plagued by feelings of lostness or insecurity. Quite the opposite. They feel fully content with their lives.

But to find the resurrected life, you can’t constantly be seeking after pleasure to avoid the pain of life. You can’t drown your sorrows in alcohol or numb yourself out by watching endless hours of television. You have to remove all the barriers and embrace the beauty and sorrow of life. You have to be present in the moment and give fully of yourself to the world. You have to be there for others by adopting a full posture of selflessness. In other words, when you realize your life is no longer about you, that’s how you cure the lostness inside of you.  

But make no mistake about it, letting go of those three basic needs is the single most challenging task Jesus asks of us, but it’s worth all the effort. The difference between the person who lives a normal life and the resurrected life is the difference between a person being a shadow and leaving their mark upon the world. When you live your life for others, when you are truly selfless, you will never be forgotten. However, when you live your life for yourself, the memory of your life will fade into the sands of time.

Which life do you want to lead? One that matters or one that is forgotten? I think all of us want to matter, but that can’t happen if we are always suppressing the lostness inside of us and Jesus calls us to be better than that. Therefore, I want you to go home and take a long a look in the mirror and examine your life. I want you to ask yourself: Am I numbing myself into becoming a shadow or am I confronting the lostness inside of me so I can make a difference in the world? If the answer is numbing, I think it might be time to take up your cross. For those who want to save their life will lose it, and those who lose their life for my sake, and for the sake of the gospel, will save it. Amen.