Looking Back: Self Denial Week

From March 1954

Self-Denial Week

By the Rev. George Carstairs, B.D

On Christmas evening, 1932, an Indian prince was entertaining a large company to a banquet in his palace. There were a few Europeans among the guests, but the majority were Hindus of the aristocratic class. At the close of dinner the Maharajah made a speech in which, after genial words of welcome, he referred most reverently to Him whose birthday they were commemorating.

“Jesus Christ,” he said in conclusion, “was the pattern of human life, not only for Christendom but for the whole world; because He was the only man who not only taught the ideal of self-denial but also followed it so perfectly that even on the Cross He could pray, “Father, forgive them; for they know not what they do.”

Yet Jesus Christ never taught the duty of self-denial as an end in itself. He set no such barrier and negative ideal before men. He bore the Cross for the sake of the good which He knew it would accomplish.

It may seem almost blasphemous to compare the self-denial we are asked to practise for one week with the suffering of Christ; but this at least they have in common, that neither is an end in itself. Each derives its meaning and its power from the vision that inspires it.

To what end will our offerings be devoted?

There are many hundreds of young Churches being fostered and aided in their struggle to maintain themselves and bear their witness in a non-Christian world; pastors and evangelists, presbyteries and assemblies, receiving guidance and support from the spiritual experience of the West. It is to help in keeping such things in being that we are asked to ‘deny ourselves’ in Holy Week this year.

Nicholas Berdjaev writes of the semi-religious fervour that is leading so many in Russia to spend themselves for a worldly ideal: “The strength of Communism lies in its having a complete design lies in its having a complete design for reconstructing the world’s life, in which theory and practice, thought and will are at one…. Every young man feels he is building up a new world…

It is as though the creation of the earth were beginning afresh”

The vision that Christ saw was a vastly higher and ultimately far more practical one than the dream of the Bolshevik. And all who have shared that vision may feel that, in little things as in great – even in the self-denials of the week – they have part with Him “in making all things new.”

There is surely something which each one of us could do without for seven days in order to make a special contribution, however small, to so great a Cause.

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