Named

We rejoice that we continue in the Christmastide. And we reflect on our feasts. The earliest Christian feast, do you know what it was? There were as yet no annual feasts. The earliest feast was celebrated weekly: the Feast of the Resurrection — called "the Eighth Day," the first day of the New Age. Early baptismal fonts were shaped like an octagon: eight sides. By the second century, this weekly feast was also celebrated annually: Great Pascha, including the practice of Great Lent. We know this from fragments of a letter from St. Irenaeus (d. 203) to Pope Victor I.

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."

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. And of course His Nativity is on the Winter Solstice, when the light begins to increase. He is the Light-bringer — conceived at the onset of Spring and born on the darkest night of the year.

The Feast of the Circumcision is observed on the eighth day of the Nativity Feast, which turns out to be January 1, our New Year. 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. 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:

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 Sunday. 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,

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 God. God already knows everything. But it is important that we make things known to Him.

I am reminded of Brother Roger, the founder of the monastic community at Taizé. He said, "God does not need our prayers. It is a mystery that He sets such store by them."

In the West our prayers are called the Divine Office from the Latin word officium, meaning obligation. And I was told as a seminarian, "The Office is said!" You don't offer prayers to God reclining in a Lazy Boy chair and silently read the Office. The Office is said!

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 suspect. Jesus' reply is significant:

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 the course, and we must discern and follow it. It is not necessary that we understand the whys and wherefores or that God is subject to our review. We must choose what God has already chosen for us. We must fulfill all righteousness because it is fitting.

I knew a woman who told me, "Oh, I don't need to pray. God already knows what is on my heart." Well, this is nonsense. We must articulate to God the prayers that we intend. In fact, a true and accurate depiction of the human mind would reveal mostly chaos: thoughts coming to the fore and then receding into darkness, things breaking the surface of the oceans of our consciousness and then disappearing again into the inky deep. We must single out the thing which is on our heart and then state it .... aloud. This is all we need to know: that God has commanded it.

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. Mysteriously, we must choose for the abundance God has already willed for us at birth.

Yes, Father God knows His Son very well. They are One and the Same. "Always already," we say in the language of theology. And God always already knows each of us. As the Psalmist writes,

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:

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 basic to everything.

I do not mean that all people are excellent however they choose to live. I do not see any dignity in being separated from God. I mean the excellence of people living out God's will, of people who have chosen for the goodness that God has already chosen for them.

One thinks of the word vocation. God calls to a particular life. And we ignore this, we have squandered the opportunity to live. We will have separated ourselves from God. No wonder depression is so widespread.

"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. Have you noticed this? My ministry of evangelism leads me to post on Facebook and Instagram (though the great majority of our readers come to our website). And I read meme after meme sounding one note of Christian life: proclaiming lowliness.

In the secular world, we were taught this humility from earliest grade school. The teacher instructs us look out upon the stars and consider that we are but an insignificant speck of lowly nothingness.

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 as children 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 breathtaking cascades and waterfalls, crashing surf, and beautiful rainforests teeming with life. but rather dead stones spinning in a void .... a wasteland.

We cannot retrieve all the money that has been thrown away. But we can re-allocate our budgets ticketed for outer space to healing of our beautiful, one-of-a-kind, planet home.

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 Calvinist doctrine of essential human unworthiness and depravity. The ancient Church has not embraced St. Augustine's doom and gloom of Original Sin. Metropolitan Antony Khropovitasky, the initial overseer and First Hierarch of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, deplored this error and the many errors that proceeded from it.

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 a noble and free choice. Is this not the teaching of the Orthodox Church? After all, the essence of Orthodox life is Theosis, which is to say, worthiness.

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, 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 in Jesus' Name. Let us receive the Second Baptism of Absolution from a priest. And then let us get on with living the good life.

I do not understand the drum beat of unworthiness. Does it edify anyone? Many years ago, a saint pointed out that my constant claims to lowliness was a way of becoming the center of attention. I protested, "But I am unworthy, not the center of attention."

"Nonetheless," she said. "This claim, which is not true, call attention to yourself. Simply acknowledge the gifts God has given you. And then give glory to God. And we are done with it. That is all."

It was my moment of being reformed. How can you disagree with advice like that?

God has made us the steward of gifts. Let us consider, instead, the vocation of abundance that God has contemplated for each of us. We recall St. Gregory the Great's wonderful injunction: "Be friends of God!"

Let us take to heart what we have learned from life, from those common, yet exalted, experiences of friendship and love. Once we have declared for friendship and it has been requited .... how tiresome then is the friend who cannot stop telling us how unworthy he is of that friendship. Rather, let us get on with friendship and follow it to the highest heights!

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 abandoned in the name of unworthiness.

People tell me, "I could never presume to be received into the Kingdom of Heaven?" But don't you live a Christian life? Don't you go to confession? What do you doubt the promises of Christ? Why do you call into question the Life-giving Cross? God has called us to His wonderful light. He has already issued this invitation to each and every one of us. He has stamped us with His Own Image at birth. 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.