If we regularly attend the Divine Services we will hear a line in the petitions, “let us commit ourselves and one another and our whole life to Christ our God.” It is at the end of one of the last petitions we offer so we may lose our concentration of what is being said, but this line is the key to our life. We must be faithful to God with our entire being.
One of the most amazing aspects of our God becoming Incarnate for us was that He too committed His whole life to the Law. There was no aspect of the Law that He did not fulfill in His life. He did not “cheat” around being a human being but wholly took on our flesh and nature. He did not deign anything human to be too lowly for Him or not necessary. This month of February begins with the celebration of one such instance, the Presentation of the Lord in the Temple. We can get such an education about our faith by listening to the hymns of any feast and this one is no different. Throughout the feast we hymn our God who “rides upon the Cherubim, and who is extolled by the Seraphim, and who now according to the Law is brought to the holy Temple” and who “created the Law and Governs all and is now held by the Elder Symeon.” Not even God Himself Incarnate neglected a single part of the commandments.
Quite often in our life we categorize things as not needing to be impacted by our faith. In reality, our faith should inform everything we do. We find an important line to remember in Psalm 142, “Teach me to do Your Will for You are my God.” It is no accident that we read this Psalm so often in our Church (we find it in Orthros, Small Compline, and Paraklesis!). If God is truly our God, we will commit our entire lives to Him, we will seek constantly to do His will for our life.
When we commit to this we see what a relief this is in comparison to a world gone mad. Who is president does not matter for my salvation. Which party is in power does not change how God wishes me to live. Politics are not my god, this country is not my god, no person here on earth can deliver me but Christ. No policy will ever change the world permanently. This is not a “cop-out” but in fact the only way to change the world! By following the commandments of Christ in every portion of our lives we can begin to see the power of God. Want peace? Run to Christ. Want to help the world? Run to Christ. Angry about an issue that plagues the world? Run to Christ. He is the answer. No worldly cause or political ideology or movement can change the world, so giving ourselves over to any of them is utterly futile. This should be clear to us now.
We must present our entire being to Christ as He gave His entirety for us. Every part of our life must be based in Him and Him alone and only from this can Good come. Christ is “presented” in the Temple today as was required by the Law, an act that among other things, shows a commitment of the whole being to God. My brothers and sisters, you will find true peace, true comfort, true answers nowhere but in God. For the sake of the world, for the sake of others, for the sake of ourselves, let us commit our whole life to Christ our God.