Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

In the Name of the Father, and of the + Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

The passage from St. Paul’s Epistle to the Colossians is written from the heart of the Church’s shepherd that aches for his flock. He is in “great conflict” or an internal struggle he says in the opening verses of this chapter,

that their hearts may be encouraged, being knit together in love, and

attaining to all the riches of the full assurance of understanding, to the knowledge of the Mystery of God, both of the Father and of Christ, in Whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge. Now this I say lest anyone should deceive you with persuasive words (Co. 2:1-4).

If we desire true wisdom and real knowledge, we must turn to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ and to His only-begotten Son Who alone reveals the Father (Jn. 1:1-18). For this Jesus, the Holy One of God conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of the most blessed Virgin (Nicene Creed), is the Word of God made flesh and circumcised in the flesh. The Circumcision of Our Lord continues to drive home the point already laid down – God incarnate, God-in-the-flesh-of-man His creature. To know Jesus Christ, then, is to know His Father – the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob – the God of the Old Covenant now made New in the flesh of Mary’s Boy. The point of all of this is so that our hearts might be knit together in love which perfects all things (Co. 3:14). For to know God is to know the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord (1 Jn. 4:7-21)!

Of course, there are many voices – in fact, a cacophony of voices – that would say otherwise: voices of unbelief, voices of extreme doubt, voices reliant solely upon fallen (and thus errant) human reason – human wisdom, human knowledge – the “philosophy and empty deceit, according to the tradition of men” about which St. Paul warns us in today’s lection. It is this Jesus Who is the Wisdom and the Power of God Who alone is trustworthy. Why? Because, “in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” “He is the image of the invisible God, the Firstborn over all creation.” Indeed, “by Him all things were created that are in Heaven and that are on earth, visible and invisible, . . . All things were created through Him and for Him. And He is before all things and in Him all things consist” (Co. 1:15-17). This Jesus in the flesh, St. Paul will say elsewhere, “upholds all things by the Word of His power, . . . .” (Hb. 1:1-4).

It is this Jesus the Christ, the Messiah and Son of God, born of the Virgin “in the fullness of time,” Whom we have received and, moreso, been baptized into – grafted into, planted deep, immersed in Him Who is the very Mystery of God, so that by His grace working we are made “bone of His bones and flesh of His divinized flesh (Gn. 2:23; Ga. 4:4), that is, we are made the sons of God in the very Son of God Himself (Ga. 3:26-29).

This is our new reality and existence if we have put on Christ God in the Mystery of Holy Baptism. We have been changed and we are being changed by this Jesus and we will be changed! Baptism is the foundation of our life in Christ and of our living in this world. Its waters of divine grace are absolutely fundamental for us and its sanctifying grace absolutely rudimentary for everything. When asked who we are our answer in truth is, “We are Christian. We are “little Christs.” We are the baptized of God and of His holy Church.” This is who we are because of Whose we are. The basic premise is, “I have been baptized!” This is the answer we give to our doubts and to our fears and to our anxieties, to our temptations and to our trials, to our hopes and our dreams and to our spiritual struggles, to the demons who seek to devour us (1 Pe. 5:8-9). “I have been baptized. I am in Christ God and Christ God is in me!” Or, to use St. Paul’s more earthy version, “I am circumcised by Christ with a circumcision not made by human hands, but by the hand of God Himself.” Therefore, for this truth and because God has done this new thing, I am about the business of putting off my sinfulness (Co. 2:13-15). For I have united myself to Jesus Christ and He has united Himself to me – the chief of sinners.

Because Jesus Christ is the fullness of the Godhead, St. Paul assures us, “you are complete in Him.” In other words, we lack nothing for our salvation because Jesus Christ lacks nothing, but rather is “the fullness of the Godhead bodily.” If there is anything we need, He supplies it (Pp. 4:19). In fact, let’s go one more step: in truth, our Lord has placed us in His Church, the Body of His perfection! What does the Apostle tell us? He says, Christ God is the fullness of the Godhead – “in Him all the fullness should dwell” (Co. 1:19) – and the Church, “which is His Body, [is] the fullness of Him Who fills all in all” (Ep. 1:22-23)! To be in Christ, therefore, is to be in His Church – to experience in the Mystery of the Church Herself the fullness of the Triune Godhead! The Apostle isn’t speaking merely of a “believer’s baptism” which is representative of one’s desire to follow Jesus Christ. It goes beyond that into a much deeper truth and reality: we are incorporated, that is, enfleshed in Christ, by being incorporated – enfleshed – in the Church which is the Sacrament and Mystery of the fullness of Him Who fills all in all! In Her, we are united with the fullness of His divinity! In Her, as in Christ God, we are whole, complete, and fulfilled.

For this reason, therefore, the Apostle exhorts us as we stand in the doorway to a new year of “work[ing] out [our] own salvation with fear and trembling” (Pp. 2:12):

As you therefore have received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the Faith, as you have been taught [catechized], abounding in it with thanksgiving (Rm. 6:17; Co. 2:6-7; 2 Tm. 3:14).

Beloved, we do this by being faithful and obedient to the Church – our Mother of salvation – in Whose womb we live and move and have our being as sons and daughters of the new circumcision (Ac. 17:28). Let us renew our life in Christ this year by being renewed in our love for His Church and Her services. The foundation is Jesus Christ. Let us build, then, upon Him for there are no other foundations to which the divine promise is attached, “’And . . . the gates of Hades shall not prevail against Her’” (Mt. 16:18).

Through the prayers of the Theotokos, O Lord Jesus Christ our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.

Glory to Jesus Christ! Glory forever!

VIGIL PROPERS: PROPERS:

Gn. 17:1-2, 4, 5, 7-8, 9-10, 11-12, 14 Co. 2:8-12

Pr. 8:22-30 Lk. 2:20-21, 40-52

Pr. 10:31-11:12