Ephesians. 4:7-13; Matthew 4:12-17
Some people think of religion as a
way of escaping the problems of life in the “real world.” They may view our
physical bodies and their weaknesses, as well as all the problems that people
and societies have in relating to one another, as evil or pointless realities
from which they hope God will deliver us.
Perhaps they want an imaginary spiritual bliss of not having to put up
with others or with the other challenges that life in the created world
presents. That hope may fit with the
sensibilities of some and even be appealing to us at times, but it has nothing
to do with the God Who revealed Himself as the Holy Trinity when Christ was
baptized by St. John in the Jordan for our salvation.
Think for a
moment about how the Holy Trinity is manifested. Jesus Christ submits to the baptism of St.
John the Forerunner in a river full of water.
When the Lord comes out of the water, the voice of the Father identifies
Him as His Beloved Son and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a
dove. Instead of escaping the creation
or rescuing us from it, God enters into it.
The Son lowers Himself into a river and gets as wet as anyone else who
did so. The deepest mystery of the universe, that God
is the Holy Trinity, is proclaimed in relation to what happened in a river full
of water.
The Savior
was not baptized as a sign of His own repentance, of course, for He had no sins
of which to repent. Instead, He makes
the water holy by entering into it, by restoring the entire creation to its
right relationship with God. As the
God-Man, He descended into the world that He spoke into existence in order to
free it from subjection to futility and fulfill it as an icon of His salvation.
We, of course, are part of that
creation in every dimension of our existence, both as particular persons and in
relation to one another. Recall the
nakedness of Adam and Eve when they turned away from God, for they stripped
themselves of the divine glory by repudiating their calling to become ever more
like God in holiness. They diminished
themselves and the entire creation by serving their self-centered desires
instead of the Lord. They brought death
and slavery to our passions into the world, which we see so vividly when their
son Cain murdered their son Abel.
Our Savior entered fully into our distorted
world of brokenness and pain in order to set it right. He was baptized in the Jordan in order to
clothe the naked Adam, in order to restore us to the dignity of those who wear
the robe of light of His beloved sons and daughters. We put Him on in baptism like a garment. By His mercy and grace, we participate
personally in His healing and blessing of every aspect of our humanity. He does not call us to flee from His world,
but to be so united with Him in holiness that we play our unique parts in fulfilling
His gracious purposes for it. He invites
us to become like Him as partakers in the divine nature by grace. That is really simply what it means to be a
human being in the divine image and likeness.
I hope that you will sign up today
for a time to have your house blessed, which is a standard Orthodox practice at
Theophany. We bless houses with holy
water, which was blessed at the conclusion of the Divine Liturgy on the day of
the feast. By entering into the water, the Lord made the water holy, which
means that He restored and fulfilled its very nature. We need water in order to live. The earth needs water in order to become
fertile, bearing fruit and giving life to animals of all kinds. We wash with water and use it to maintain
cleanliness and health. Without water,
we become weak and die, as do other creatures.
And in the world as we know it, water can kill us through floods and
storms. Since the creation has been subjected to futility through the sin of
human beings, the very water through which God gives us life may become the
means of our death.
The good news is that our Lord has made even death an entrance into
life. When we are baptized into Christ,
we are baptized into His death. When we
put Him on in baptism, we died to sin and rose with Him in holiness, regaining the
robe of light and being restored to our intended place in the creation in God’s
image and likeness. When we bless holy water, we restore water to its intended
place, to its original role in giving life and cleansing impurities. These are fulfilled in baptism, by which the
Lord shares His eternal life with us and washes away our corruption. Here we
see the purpose of water, and the creation itself, fulfilled.
When we bless a home, or anything else, with
holy water, God restores it to its natural state, to its place in fulfilling
God’s purposes in the creation. And
since our homes are where we and our families live each day, how could we not
want that blessing on our marriages, our children, and the physical space where
we offer our lives to the Lord? When we
bless our homes, we join what is most important to us to Christ’s healing and
restoration of the entire universe. We make our daily lives a liturgy, an
entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven.
We cannot stop
there, however, for we must actually live as those who have put on a robe of
light, who have entered into the fulfillment of all things in Christ. We must make our marriages, families, and daily
interactions with others an epiphany, a manifestation of God’s gracious
purposes. We must become icons of the
Holy Trinity as particular people united in holy love with others.
As St. Paul
taught in today’s epistle lesson, “And His gifts were that some should be
apostles, some prophets, some evangelists, some pastors and teachers, to equip
the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, until
we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God,
to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of
Christ.” Christ blesses us, not as
isolated individuals, but as members of His Body for the blessing of all our
fellow members and ultimately for the entire world. We become truly human together in Him.
We will not find
salvation in isolation, but as persons united in holy love who share a common
life in Christ. As those created in His
image and likeness, that is our natural state.
It is revealed at Christ’s baptism that He is the Son of the
Father. That is a relationship of holy
love beyond our full understanding. To be
in loving relationship with others is a key dimension of what it means to be a
human being in the divine image and likeness.
When we bless our homes, we find strength to make our marriages and
families icons of the fulfillment of God’s gracious purposes. That is only a
start, however, as we must intentionally turn away from darkness in all its
forms in order to become radiant with the light of Christ. In other words, we must repent. That is
ultimately how to celebrate this great feast, by offering every dimension of
our lives to the Lord such that we become living epiphanies of His salvation in
the world as we know it. The point is
not to escape the world, but to become icons of its fulfillment.
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