On the first day of the New Year our Church commemorates the memory of one of her greatest fathers, Saint Basil the Great: a theologian, hierarch, philanthropist, defender of the Faith, nurturer of the poor and sick, and a man dedicated with all his heart and soul to Jesus Christ. What an example of faith, love, and devotion! On the first day of the New Year, eight days after the celebration of our Lord's Birth, the Church also remembers our Lord’s circumcision and His receiving the name Jesus, which means Savior.
The feast of the Circumcision of our Lord is one of the feasts which seems to speak least to the soul of modern Christians. However, its spiritual content is very rich. It emphasizes our Lord’s abasement and humility in assuming our human condition and submitting to all the requirements of the Mosaic Law showing Him to be the fulness and completion of the Old Covenant.
Circumcision is no longer a religious requirement, but a true spiritual circumcision that brings about in us our complete submission and devotion to God is still necessary. A Circumcision of the heart must reach all our thoughts, all our desires, all our feelings, and excise everything that is in conflict with the search for God. The great commandment: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart . . .” expresses very well what this circumcision of the heart means.
In Greek there are two words for time. One is chronos, the other is kairos. Chronos is time measured by the clock or the calendar, whereas kairos is time measured as opportunity. The Bible places the accent on time as kairos, that is, as a God-given opportunity. We stand at the beginning of a New Year. For us Christians there is no such thing as "marking time" or "killing time." Every second, every minute, every hour, every day, every week, every month of the New Year is a God-given kairos: the opportunity for us to know God, to love Him, and to serve Him. Every New Year is another opportunity for us to gain eternity. So let us make every minute of it count for God, for others, for eternity.
Think for a moment on what one Christian can do in one minute. In one minute I can send a card of cheer to some person who is ill, discouraged, or sorrowful. In one minute I can speak a kind word to some lonely, disheartened person. In one minute I can make a telephone call to some shut-in to let him or her know that someone cares. In one minute I can say a good word for someone whose name is being slandered. In one minute I can put my arm around some child and give him love or offer a prayer for someone. If we make time for God in our minutes, the New Year will most certainly be blessed by God.
And if we make time for God it will be blessed, in all the circumstances of life, positive and negative. But will we make time for Christ and for His Church to honor Him and to worship Him? Will we find time for the things that abide forever, for the soul, for prayer, for faith and love? Why is it that some people find time for God and others do not? Is it that some people have more time than others? Is there anyone you know who has more than sixty seconds to his minutes or more than sixty minutes to each hour? The difference is not in the amount of time, but in how we use it.
Our Lord came to fulfill the law, which no one could keep, so that He might free us from its judgment and make us, through faith in Him, righteous before God. “For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision is of any avail, but faith working through love.” (Galatians 5:6) The feast of the Circumcision reminds us that truly “if any one is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has passed away, behold, the new has come,” (II Corinthians 5:17). Christ alone can give us true victory in life as we seek to change by His grace. He alone can grant us new spirits, new hearts, new relationships, as we earnestly leave behind what belongs to the old nature and embrace what belongs to the new nature in the likeness of Christ.
May Christ bless us to make His ways straight in our lives so that He may come and abide with us daily during the New Year, and may His presence bring us all renewed hope, faith, spiritual growth and joy.