On this first day of the New Year we remember not only Jesus Christ’s initiation into Judaism and the conferral of His name but also the death of one of the three great Cappadocian Fathers, St. Basil the Great. Our readings for this weekend, which are taken from the second letter to Paul to Timothy and his letter to the Colossians as well as the first chapter of Mark’s Gospel and the second chapter of Luke’s Gospel. The passage from second Timothy conveys Paul’s thoughts on the reward for fidelity to faith in Jesus Christ and the passage from Mark’s Gospel recounts John the Baptizer advising his followers that one greater than he would be coming, namely Jesus, the Christ.

The passage from Colossians conveys Paul’s thoughts on the sovereign role of Christ. He states that our commitment to Christ is analogous to being circumcised in Him. Paul writes this:

In Christ the fullness of deity resides in bodily form. Yours is a share of this fullness, in him who is the head of every principality and power. You were also circumcised in him, not with the circumcision administered by hand but with Christ’s circumcision which strips off the carnal body completely.

The passage from Luke’s Gospel actually shares the historical event of Christ being named and then sharing another event in the Lord’s life, namely Him being found by His parents in the Temple when he was twelve. So what message can we glean from these very different readings.

It seemed to me that a common theme in all of these readings is commitment! Even the story of John the Baptizer presented at the beginning of Mark’s Gospel is all about commitment and recognition of Jesus Christ as our sovereign Lord. A real commitment to attempting to live like Jesus truly leads to our finding the true meaning and purpose of life.

Commitment to following God’s way of living leads to finding why we are here on earth. I believe this can truly be said of St. Basil the Great. He gave himself completely and totally to imitating Jesus Christ. He made a real commitment to the Gospel of Jesus and gained fullness of life.

We have been initiated into the Christian faith just as Jesus was initiated into the faith of His earthly parents. His commitment to living God’s way resulted in Him doing the will of God. So too are we called to do the will of God. We can accomplish this by living as Jesus lived.

Let us imitate Jesus!