Gnōthi seavton: that means “Know yourself.” With these two words, ancient philosophers and Christian theologians have wrestled with a fundamental reality: we humans spend a lot of time either hiding from ourselves or narcissistically focused on a false view of ourselves, but true knowledge of who we really are is fundamental to being who we really are. My bishop is fond of asking us to pray for him, that he will constantly know himself and not lose himself. Isn’t that wonderful, all at once humble and yet profound? Well, this reality is so absolutely essential to any hope of spiritual maturity and wholeness that St. Basil in his homily on attentiveness, concludes: “Be attentive to yourself, that you may be attentive to God, to whom the glory and the dominion unto the ages.”

To do the work of knowing yourself soberly and honestly requires a focus most of us struggle to attain even in the briefest of moments. Our lives are jam-packed with business and schedules and noise and meetings and media and, well, the list goes on and on. And this distracted living causes most of the problems in our lives, in our relationships, and in our work. This distractedness, this lack of attentiveness, makes us strangers even primarily to ourselves. No wonder we wonder what we should be when we grow up. No wonder we struggle to grow up at all.

This lack of authentic self-knowledge nags at ourselves. Since we should be able to know ourselves and either consciously or unconsciously we attempt to fulfill this fundamental need with all kinds of lesser remedies with haphazard results. We seek self-knowledge and self-esteem only to be reduced to “Well, now, let’s not keep score so no one’s feelings get hurt,” or we fall off the other side of this narrow road by an illusion of false humility that usually comes off more as a cry for attention than the humble self-forgetfulness of one who truly knows himself and knows he has nothing to prove. Both of these attempts at self-knowledge lead us nowhere near the truest results.

Look at our gospel lesson today in Luke 3:15-18. Read the whole pericope if you get a chance, but for space’s sake, we’ll just quote the last three verses.

As the people were in expectation and all men questioned in their hearts concerning John, whether perhaps he was the Christ, John answered them all: “I baptize you with water, but he who is mightier than I is coming, the thongs of whose sandals I am unworthy to untie. He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit and with fire. His winnowing fork is in his hand to clear his threshing floor and to gather the wheat into his granary, but the chaff he will burn with unquenchable fire. So with many other exhortations he preached good news to the people.

You see, St. John the Baptizer knew himself. He understood who he was, what he was called to accomplish, and where his life was supposed to go. This self-knowledge created a freedom for St. John, for him to be liberated from the false expectations of delusion and grandeur. His self-knowledge made him free to be who he was, and this freedom gave him peace. But this freedom wasn’t embraced without cost.

If you know the Scriptures concerning St. John, then you know that he was a man of robust spiritual discipline. He spent many years in the solitary places of the wilderness and ate only locusts and wild honey. His discipline provided him his healthy self-knowledge, and his utter trust in God’s grace and mercy provided the motivation for his discipline. In other words, our self-knowledge isn’t going to be cheap or easy. It’s going to take a conviction within us that this work of true self-knowledge will produce my truest self in communion with Christ. St. John could know what he knew about the Lord and he could know what he knew about himself because he came to understand the true purpose of life is restoration of communion with God. As St. Basil says above, “Be attentive to yourself, that you may be attentive to God.”

Today as we approach the moment where the Lord himself will submit himself to baptism by John’s hands, let’s embrace with sober joy the invitation from God to know ourselves without the delusion of false arrogance or false humility. Our spiritual maturity and freedom ultimately depend on our willingness to see ourselves, warts and all, with an honesty that protects us from attempts to justify ourselves or falsely condemn ourselves, because if we fall into either one of these delusions, we will never discover who we really are.

Here at the beginning of another year, perhaps it’s time to either recommit to this valuable work or to begin this work maybe for the very first time. All the tools that you need are right here in abundant supply in our normal Orthodox life. All we have to do is be willing to embark on this journey, and God himself will be our helper. This is really the only true way to ever be Orthodox on purpose.