We rejoice that we continue in the Christmas Season, the Season of the Blessed Nativity. And we reflect on our feasts. The earliest Christian feast, celebrated every Sunday by the Apostles, is the Feast of the Resurrection — called "the Eighth Day," the first day of the New Age. By the second century, this weekly feast was also celebrated annually: Great Pascha, including the practice of Great Lent. A letter survives from St. Irenaeus (d. 203) to Pope Victor I discussing East-West differences.
Likewise, the Feast of the Theophany is ancient, mentioned in The Apostolic Constitutions (Book V:13). From the second century we have the testimony of Saint Clement of Alexandria concerning the celebration of the Baptism of the Lord.
By contrast, the Feast of the Nativity would not be celebrated until the mid-fourth century. and the Feast of the Circumcision, not until the late Middle Ages. But these two feasts were understood to be already present in the Feast of the Theophany, which the early Church called the the "Day of Illumination" and the "Feast of Lights."
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The people which sat in darkness saw great light; and to them
which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up. (Mt 4:16) |
Indeed, the December 25th date of the Nativity was decided because it fell nine months after the Vernal Equinox, the first day of Spring, which the early Church believed must have been the date of Jesus' conception. For He is the Light-bringer — conceived at the onset of Spring and born on the darkest night of the year. (Only later did we sharpen dates for the solistices and equinoxes to be the twenty-first of the month.)
The Feast of the Circumcision is observed on the eighth day of the Nativity Feast, or January 1. We see this repetition of the eighth day, connecting the day of Naming to the Resurrection and Eucharist. This is the first day of the New Age, certainly in the scale of each human life. This the feast was celebrated as the Feast of the Holy Name in the West. For the day of circumcision is the day when a male child becomes known to God:
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And when eight days were completed for the circumcision of the Child, His name
was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before He was conceived in the womb. (Lu 2:21) |
We notice a distinction in the passage from Luke. Jesus' Name was given already by no less an authority than an angel, yet He is named on the eighth day.
As naming is one of the five steps of Orthodox Baptism, we see that the ancient Church understood today's feast as being implicit in Christian Baptism, whose great exemplum is the Baptism of the Lord, of course — the blueprint for everything.
The Lord's Baptism is also the occasion for the Fullness of the Holy Trinity being revealed to the world, a towering feast, which we will celebrate this coming Thursday. But today, let us observe the Feast of the Circumcision as an integral part of Nativity-Circumcision-Baptism cycle.
By tradition, today is the day when the Child Jesus is announced to God. The covenant of circumcision is kept, and His Name is entered into the Rolls of Life. To fail in this, according to Genesis 17:14,
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".... the uncircumcised male child, who is not circumcised in the flesh of his foreskin,
that person shall be cut off from his people; he has broken My covenant." |
Let us pause to reflect. Jesus of Nazareth is not different from the Son of God. He is simultaneously fully man and fully God at all times. In the rite of naming, therefore, Jesus is made known to the God Who Self-Begot Him before all ages. Jesus' Name is entered into the Book of Life, which He wrote. Jesus is numbered among the creatures of the Creation, which He made.
We are in awe that what is already true must be made known to the Almighty and Omniscient God. This is very important in the living of our lives. What is already true must be made known by ourselves to the Almight and Omniscient God. And we remember St. John the Baptist's dilemma: "You baptized by me?! Rather, it is I who must be baptized by you!" But such is human reasoning, which before the Divine is always already suspect. Jesus' reply is significant:
| ".... for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness." (Mt 3:15) |
The things of God, you see, are not the things of men (Isa 55:8-9, 1 Cor 2:15-16).
We are given to understand that God sets a course for each of us, and each of us must follow it. There are two parts here: God has set a course, and we must follow it. It is not necessary that we understand it or subject God's proposal to our review. We must choose what God has already chosen for us. We must fulfill all righteousness because it is fitting. This is all we need to know. And God decides what is fitting.
The life of Jesus is the blueprint for every human life. God's Son has been sent by the Father so that we, who were lost, might find our way towards Him (and not a single lamb was lost). Mysteriously, we must choose for the abundance God has already willed for us at birth.
Yes, Father God knows His Son very well. "Always already," we say in the language of theology. And God always already knows each of us. As the Psalmist writes,
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My frame was not hidden from You,
When I was made in secret, And skillfully wrought in the lowest parts of the earth. (Ps 139:15) |
or "at the level of subatomic particles," we would say today.
Consider the high dignity, therefore, that we enjoy before God. We stand beside Jesus. We follow a path established by Him. Again, we recall the Psalmist:
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What is man that You are mindful of him,
And the son of man that You visit him? For You have made him a little lower than the angels, And You have crowned him with glory and honor. You have made him to have dominion over the works of Your hands; You have put all things under his feet, * * * O Lord, our Lord, How excellent is Your Name in all the earth! (Ps 8:4-9) |
On this day, we celebrate the excellence of the human creature and name him — both male and female, for in the ordinary state of Christian life, God made man and woman to be one. We celebrate the excellence of man and woman on this day for Naming, for the rite of Naming is universal.
I do not mean that all people are excellent however they choose to live. I do not countenance a high dignity among those who have separated themselves from God. I mean the excellence of good people, of people who have chosen for the goodness that God has already chosen for them. "You have crowned this creature," the Psalmist declares, "with honor and glory." And for each of us, as we face God on the eighth day following our nativity, all good things lie before us .... followed by unending goodness in God's good Kingdom.
How very odd, therefore, that faithful Christians should go through life chronically insisting on their unworthiness. In the secular world, we were taught this humility from earliest grade school. We were told that our planet is a tiny speck in an infinite universe. That is, we are nothing, really.
But I would have hoped that our thinking on this subject would have changed, that, in fact, our planet home is a marvel in the universe. For after shooting many trillions of dollars off into space in search of intelligent life (and that is the rationale we have heard for generations now), that we have discovered a great discovery: that only our beautiful planet and ourselves have met this standard. We have shot trillions of dollars off into space only to discover .... ourselves and no one else.
Indeed, we were taught to shy away from the obvious fact that our Earth is a paragon, a unique miracle of God. What did I see with my own eyes when I looked through my first telescope as a little boy? Not waterfalls and pristine ponds, not verdent forests with countless beautiful creatures .... but only a wasteland.
"Bow before the majesty of the universe?!" we ought to reply, "Universe?! Do you mean that vast emptiness which is the scene of dead stones spinning in a void?" Our space explorations have not taught us about our unworthiness. Rather, they have instructed us in a far more important lesson: that our planet and we are one-of-a-kind: marvelous, splendid wonderful! We should re-allocate our space budgets to healing our beautiful planet home, for it is irreplaceable.
The cult of human insignificance and unworthiness is the devil's invention .... and weapon. Yes, many good people have fallen into this trap. I do not think less of them for this. But it is a trap. Do not the Scriptures declare the wonder of God's precious human creature, Whom He loves so completely and so well? This is the story of the Bible. Certainly, the Orthodox Church does not affirm the Protestant doctrine of essential human unworthiness and depravity. The ancient Church has not embraced St. Augustine's doom and gloom of Original Sin. In fact, the Church affirms the worthiness of Humankind — that our essential purpose in life is to accept God's offer of Friendship and to enter into the work of Deification, or Theosis, to embrace the goodness God has set before us and to give a wide berth to evil and nihilism, which is not so far from the cult of human wretchedness. Is this not the teaching of the Orthodox Church? The essence of Orthodoxy is Theosis .... worthiness, I might say.
As Jesus grew in wisdom and stature and favor with men and God, so must we. He is the Plan. We are His followers. This is Christian life.
Yes, the Lord must address the human choice for evil. He must push back against sexual lust (Mt 5:28), adultery (Mk 10:9), lust for power (Mk 10:37), gluttony (Lu 16:21), drunkenness (Mt 24:49), sloth (Mt 25:3), pridefulness (Lu 18:11), murder and fornication (Mt 15:19), and sexual fantasy, this preoccupation of our time disclosed in the domination of pornography. He says, "If you entertain sexual sin in your mind, then you have already committed sexual sin with your body." But today our subject is not evil but rather goodness and our freedom to choose always what is good. Goodness, goodness, and more goodness.
Yes, we might fall into sin. We might experience a moment of weakness. The devil might entice our minds to stray, to which we consent. But, in that case, let us regret it. Let us confess our faults. Let us receive the Second Baptism of Absolution from a priest. And then let us get on with good life.
I do not understand how a constant drum beat of unworthiness edifies anyone. Many years ago, a saint pointed out that my constant claims to lowliness — "I am the least of all," I would say. — only serve to make me the center of attention. "Acknowledge the gifts God has given you," she said. "And then give glory to God. And we are done. That is all." You see, it is not all about me. It is all about God and the gifts He has given me, to which I must be faithful. But unending protestations of one's unworthiness? Can we really call this Christian life in view of all we have considered? Is this what God has in mind for the one who is named before Him?
Let us consider, instead, the vocation of abundance that God has contemplated for us. We recall St. Gregory the Great's wonderful injunction: "Be friends of God!" Let us also say, "Be saints of God!"
Let us take to heart what we have learned from life about friendship and love. Once we have declared for friendship .... how tiresome then is the friend who cannot stop telling us how unworthy he is of our friendship. Once we have declared for love, how tiresome is the suitor who cannot stop talking about his unworthiness. Rather, let us get on with Friendship to the highest heights! Let us claim the raptures of mutual Love and know of our high esteem in the Beloved's eyes!
Buck up, O Christian! The promises of Christ are to be believed, not doubted. The power of the life-giving Cross is to be received in gratitude, not slighted. Sanctified life is to be followed and claimed, not vacated in the name of unworthiness.
Yes,
I have known the living saints.
Yes, I claim God's injunction to be a saint.
I might say,
"Come, join us!"
But God has already summoned all of us!
He has already issued this invitation to each and every one of us.
Let our apostolate be the Possible, the Believable, and the Trustworthy.
And let us hear no more about being a speck,
a nothing,
and
the most lowly among all.
For we are named before God.
And
He has bigger plans for us than speck-hood.
He has called us to be His friends.
And Friendship is not possible without a certain equality among souls
and
mutual feelings and devotions of Love.
In the Name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost.
Amen.