2 Timothy 4:5-8; Mark 1:1-8
Today is the Sunday before the Feast of Theophany (or
Epiphany), when we celebrate Christ’s baptism in the river Jordan and the
revelation that He is truly the Son of God. His divinity is made manifest
and openly displayed at His baptism when the voice of the Father declares, “You
are my beloved Son” and the Holy Spirit descends upon Him in the form of a
dove. Theophany shows us that Jesus Christ, who was born in the flesh for
our salvation at Christmas, is not merely a great religious teacher or moral
example. He is truly God—a Person of the Holy Trinity– Whose salvation
permeates the entire creation, including the water of the river Jordan.
Through Christ’s and our baptism, we become participants in the eternal life
that He shares with us by grace, for He restores to us the robe of light which
our first parents lost when they chose pride and self-centeredness over
obedience and communion. He enters the
Jordan to restore Adam and Eve, and all their children, to the dignity of those
who bear the image and likeness of God.
At the time of His earthly ministry, however, people were
looking for a very different kind of Savior.
The word “messiah” means “anointed one,” and the Jews wanted a leader
who would deliver their nation from Roman oppression, not unlike how any people
living under military occupation by the armies of another nation typically want
their liberation and independence. Christ’s own disciples thought of Him
in those terms until after His resurrection, for even those closest to the Lord
had great difficulty accepting that He was not the earthly king they had
expected. They were so focused on how
Jesus Christ might fulfill their dreams for power in this world that they could
not grasp His true identity as the Son of God, the incarnate second Person of
the Holy Trinity, the divine Word Who spoke the universe into existence. His
Kingdom is not of this world and stands in prophetic judgment over all our
pathetic attempts to use religion to build ourselves up over our neighbors, no
matter who they may be.
To prepare the way of a Messiah Who did not fit popular
preconceived notions, God sent a very bold prophet who surely made almost everyone
uncomfortable. St. John the Baptist and
Forerunner was a strict ascetic, living in the desert, eating only locusts and
honey, and wearing camel skin. Like all the true Hebrew prophets before him,
John did not serve anyone’s worldly agenda.
In addition to his stark appearance and lifestyle, his message was
severe to the point of being insulting. He proclaimed God’s truth and did
not care who might be offended, perhaps because harsh words were necessary to challenge
people to recognize the true state of their souls. John mocked the Pharisees and Sadducees,
calling them a brood of vipers—a bunch of slimy snakes. He told the rich
to share with the poor, soldiers to stop abusing their authority, and tax
collectors to stop stealing from the people. He let no one off the hook, fearlessly
proclaiming God’s word even to those who had the power to destroy him. Ultimately,
he lost his head for criticizing the immorality of the royal family.
God shook up Israel with John the Baptist, the Forerunner
of our Lord, who began to open their eyes to a Messiah Whom they did not
expect. They needed a call to repentance from a wild and holy man who
served none of the petty kingdoms or factions of this world, but who instead called
everyone to repent by changing the direction of their lives in relation to God
and neighbor. They were to make straight whatever crookedness was in them. They were to abandon hypocritical and
self-serving distortions of God’s Law. No
one was to say, “But I am a child of Abraham or a religious leader or a
well-respected person, so repentance is not for me.” No one was to point
to the offenses of others as a distraction from reorienting their own lives
toward God. The Forerunner called
everyone straightforwardly to greater holiness in preparation for the coming of
the Messiah, Who is truly the God-Man.
As we prepare for the Feast of Theophany, we must
recognize that John’s message applies to each of us today in ways that should
make us all uncomfortable. If we
have put on Christ in baptism, we must conform our character to His because we
have already received the robe of light.
Having celebrated His birth as Orthodox Christians, we have already
proclaimed that the Savior is not merely one of many insightful teachers or
inspiring examples, but truly the Son of God. In Him, we are “partakers
of the divine nature” by grace as members of His Body, the Church. The more that we share in His life, the more
clearly we will see how infinitely much more room we have for growth in embracing
the healing of our souls because none of us has become a perfect epiphany of Christ’s
salvation.
It would be different if the Epiphany of Jesus Christ as
the Son of God were merely an idea to be grasped as an abstract truth. It would
be different if Theophany were simply a calling to prove that we are right and
others are wrong. This feast is nothing
like that, however, for it calls us to enter personally into the great mystery
of our salvation by becoming radiant with the divine glory that the Savior has
shared with us. We must no longer live
as those driven by insecurities and fears rooted in the fear of death,
including the obsession to prove that we are right about religion or anything
else. Our focus must be on finding healing
for our souls so that we will be able to live each day as those clothed with a
robe of light.
In order to share more fully in the eternal life of the
God-Man, we must follow the path of ongoing repentance proclaimed by John,
always seeing ourselves as those who must prepare the way of the Lord in our
lives. We must persist in cooperating
with Christ’s healing mercy, actively making straight whatever remains
crooked. Like those who first heard the Forerunner, we have become
too comfortable with life on our own terms, perhaps patting ourselves on the
back for being Orthodox and thinking that repentance is only for others. The Lord calls us to reject such foolishness,
for as He taught, “From everyone who has been given much, much will be
demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be
asked.” (Lk. 12:48) Even as the Forerunner
blasted the self-righteous hypocrites of first-century Palestine, he would excoriate
us for daring to use our undeserved spiritual blessings as an excuse to distract
ourselves from recognizing that we are each “the chief of sinners” in need of the
divine healing and transformation graciously extended to us—and to all people--
in Jesus Christ.
As we prepare to celebrate Theophany, let us gain the
spiritual clarity to behold the glory of Christ’s baptism by straightening whatever
remains crooked within us. Instead of
finding ways to ignore the preaching of the Forerunner, let us take his
sobering message to heart as we confess and repent of our sins and reorient
ourselves to our Lord and His Kingdom. The Messiah is born and is on His
way to the Jordan where His divinity will shine forth. Will we have the eyes to behold His
glory? There is only one way to prepare:
namely, to repent as we turn away from all that hinders us from shining
brightly with the divine glory manifest in the God-Man. Nothing can keep us
from doing so other than our own stubborn refusal to prepare the way of the
Lord by making His paths straight in our own lives. There is no other way to enter into the great
joy of the Feast of Theophany, for the Lord calls us to become nothing less
than living epiphanies of His fulfillment of the human person in the divine image
and likeness. That is why He is baptized in the Jordan for our salvation and
the salvation of the entire world.
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