Christ is baptized! In the Jordan! Today we celebrate Theophany, the revelation of our Lord’s divinity, and His act of humility for our salvation. This act gave to water the power to sanctify. In our baptism, we are given to participate in Christ’s death, that we might also partake of his resurrection.

As Jesus comes to the Jordan and steps into the water with John, we begin to see both the tenderness and the awe inspiring love of God revealed in our midst. John asks Christ, perhaps with a mixture of fear and joy, “I need to be baptized by you, and yet you come to me?” And Christ, knowingly, gently, responds, “Let it be so. Let it be so, because this is what must happen to fulfill all righteousness.” Jesus fulfills the Law in his own person, knitting back together the cosmic unraveling begun with Adam and Eve. As he does so, the Father and the Spirit come to recognize his eternal divinity, his union with them from before time. St. Theophylact of Ohrid says that “Adam had closed the heavens, but through Christ the heavens were opened, so that you may learn, that when you are baptized, you too open the heavens.” We are baptized into Christ’s baptism. We are baptized into Christ’s death. We are baptized into Christ’s resurrection, and when we rise with him at each moment of our lives, God’s light within us pierces the clouds of life like the sun. The Sun of Righteousness warms us by his light, which is implanted deep in us. How beautiful is the tenderness of God’s love for us.

And yet also, how awe inspiring. In the Royal Hours yesterday, we hear the poetic words of the Jordan River itself as it prepares to receive Christ. “Why are you restraining your waters, o Jordan? Why do you reverse your current and not proceed to flow naturally?” And the river replies, “I am unable to bear the all-consuming fire. For I am shaking with holy thrill at the extreme condescension. For I am not accustomed to cleansing one who is clean; I know not how to purify the sinless, but only to wash the dirtied vessels. But now Christ, who is being baptized in me, is teaching me to burn up thorns of sins.” The Jordan itself trembles at God who stands in its flow. Our God who is, as St. Paul says, is “a consuming fire.” As Christians, we are called to stand in the midst of that purifying fire, the fire that is kindled within us from the moment of our baptism. Purification is often painful. Confronting the truth of who we are and who we have failed to become is painful. If we try to run from this transfiguring process, to hide ourselves or block out the light, we risk wounding ourselves and one another more deeply. Through our efforts of self-preservation, we shut ourselves off to our neighbor and “close up” the heavens of our heart. But If we stand with courage in the midst of that fire, and turn towards God with an open heart, it will hurt, but we will become, in the words of St Joseph of Panephysis, “all flame.” How fierce is the awe inspiring power of God’s love for us.

Today, a tragedy and a travesty is upon us as thousands of domestic terrorists march on the nation’s capitol, in an attempt to uphold an administration built on fear and hatred of the other, built on the oppression of the powerful against the powerless. The institutions they march upon, meanwhile, have continued to ignore the cries of the poor, the needy and the oppressed. They speak with softer words, but are themselves complicit in shutting out our collective consciousness from true repentance and justice for ourselves and our neighbors. This confrontation is taking place because we as a nation have failed to confront the truth of who we are. We have failed to confront the racism, economic oppression and bigotry that have plagued this country since the beginning. Rather than standing in the flame of God’s love and allowing it to burn up the thorn bush of sins, we have tried to hide the thorn bush under landscaping, and it has only continued to grow and fester. As Christians, many of us who are called to witness to the consuming fire of God in acts of mercy and justice have wounded ourselves and one another more deeply through apathy, ignorance, self-preservation. The good news is, God’s fire can and will burn through all inequity if we let it. Our baptism, Christ’s baptism, can wash away all sins as a mighty river, if only we open the floodgates of our lives and let the currents knock down our idols of fear, racism, pride and power. The bad news is, in ignoring it, we only grow more kindling for the fire, and make more suffering for ourselves before true healing can come.

Each of us will have a different work to do. We are all in the image of God, and like a mosaic icon we each reflect a different piece of God’s image. Reach out to your community. Speak out for more just laws. Give alms to organizations promoting flourishing for marginalized communities. Listen to people’s stories. Do whatever God calls you to do, but do something. And be attentive also to the fire of God that burns with grace and beauty within you. That fire kindled by Christ in the Jordan. May the revelation of our God this day make us radiant with his love, and sharing in his death through baptism and repentance may we be raised to new life, all of us in solidarity with one another, by His resurrection. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

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The Holy Prophet Malachi lived 400 years before the Birth of Christ, at the time of the return of the Jews from the Babylonian Captivity. Malachi was the last of the Old Testament prophets, therefore the holy forerunners call him “the seal of the prophets.”
Manifesting himself as an image of spiritual goodness and piety, he astounded the nation and was called Malachi, i.e., an angel. His prophetic book is included in the Canon of the Old Testament. In it he foretells the coming of Jesus Christ and His Forerunner, and also the Last Judgment (Mal 3:1-5; 4:1-6).
Stay tuned for our schedule of Theophany services! Christ is born! Glorify Him!