Theophany
Dear Beloved,
We have no information of the life of Jesus Christ between His Presentation in the Temple and the age of 30, except His flight into Egypt and His appearance in the Temple when He was 12 years old.
This is why some people wrongly believe that Jesus Christ has visited India, lived among the Tibetan gurus and came wiser into Palestine to share the wisdom He has accumulated with the people of Israel. Together with the heretic Nestorius, they basically say that He was born as a normal man and gradually acquired the grace of God upon Him. This is a wrong interpretation of the verse "Jesus increased in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man. "(Luk 2:52)
Nothing can be more wrong than this interpretation. Christ was made manifest gradually, siga-siga, as the Greek say. He could have manifested His Godly wisdom even when he was in His Mother's womb, but he would have appeared to the others as a monster. A new born speaking in parables would definitely not be something people would consider normal.
Therefore Christ chose to show to reveal the wisdom of the Word progressively, according to His worldly age, waiting to reach the human maturity age 30, to show His true divine origin at His Baptism in the River Jordan.
The feast of Theophany (the appearance of God) or Epiphany (simply appearance or manifestation) is the commemoration of the baptism of Jesus Christ by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan.
Saint John the Baptist is a very important figure of the Sacred History because He is considered to be the link between the Old and the New Testament. His name John means "the gift from God". He is also called the Prodromos, meaning the one that opens the way, in our case of Christ. We know he was miraculously born of the old couple Zacharias and Elisabeth that he recognized Jesus from his mother's womb, he lived in the desert and he baptized people in the river Jordan with the baptism of repentance.
Saint John Chrysostom makes the distinction between three types of baptism. The baptism of the Jews who was only a cleaning of the body, but it was not granting a spiritual purification. In contrast the baptism of the Church that we practice nowadays cleans the whole man, body and soul and gives Him the Holy Spirit. The Baptism of Saint John the Baptist is in between the two, establishing a bridge between the Law of Moses and the Gospel of Salvation. This last baptism was superior to the one of the Jews because it was also announcing the coming of Christ, but was inferior to the baptism of the Christians because could still not clean man of sin.
It appears therefore strange the Christ would subdue himself to this ritual meant to point to Him, which was in no need of purification, being without sin. But Christ came into this world to assume our sins, therefore accepted the baptism of John for our salvation, in order to be cleansed in our behalf, as he also accepted on our behalf his Passions and Crucifixion.
He also accepts the baptism to show again that He came not to change the Law, but to fulfill it. Also He accepted the Baptism to reveal at the beginning of His missionary work His Godly origin, revealing to us the Holy trinity: The Father as the voice calling Him Beloved Son and the Spirit in the form of a Dove. We realize now that Saint John is not the one that sanctified Christ when he performed the baptism, but he himself was sanctified by touching the head of His Master.
The word Baptism comes again from Greek: Baptisma , meaning immersion into water. So baptism is linked with water. Through the baptism of the Lord the waters were also sanctified, being transformed in waters of sanctification. The water is no more water in which the demons lurk, as we see sometimes in the icons of Theophany, but it is now water of salvation; water that liberates man from the ties of sin making, giving Him birth again from water and Spirit. Man is remodeled by God, as a pot maker models his vessels, using water and fire: water from the River Jordan and fire from the Holy Spirit.
On this day the River Jordan changes its course, and starts flowing backwards, underlying exactly this concept. The river Jordan, with its two traditional streams Jor and Dan represents also our lives, lives that stream from our ancient parents, Adam and Eve. From them the life of mankind started flowing toward the Dead Sea of sin and perdition, as Jordan River does. But when the Master entered the river, the Jordan started flowing backwards, in the same way as our lives turn toward our true godly origins, when Christ enters into our lives. The events on the banks of Jordan reveal to us the deep meanings of the Sacrament of Baptism in Christian practice. During the sacrament we sing "as many as were baptized in Christ have put on Christ". This reveals the presence of Christ at our baptism. When we enter into the baptismal font Christ is also there with us turning around the course of our lives from a life spent in sin and worldly things into a life in virtue, used to gather the things that matter for eternity.
In remembrance of this divine episode we also perform the blessing of the waters in the day of Epiphany. St. Basil the Great affirms that the blessing of water came to us as a "mystical tradition" and that the water, through the prayer and blessing of the priest, receives a "quickening power of the Holy Spirit." Through this heavenly power the water we bless today receives the power to bless those who drink from it or are sprinkled with it and lasts for years without corruption.
It is a custom among our people to drink of the Holy Water for the "purification of their souls and bodies and cure of our weakness." This custom is very ancient and came to us with the ritual itself. The taking of the Holy Water to our homes is to have in it a fount of continued blessings and protection against all evil.
It is a miracle of God still happening into our times. We just have to open our eyes and accept the power of the Holy spirit into our lives and through repentance let us go away from the salty and deadly sea of errors and rejoin our sweet origins in paradise, glorifying the Holy Trinity who was reveled to us today, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, now and forever and unto the ages of ages Amin.