January: Day 6: Teaching 2:
The Feast of Theophany
(Why Was the Lord Baptized and Why Are We Baptized?)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
The Feast of Theophany
(Why Was the Lord Baptized and Why Are We Baptized?)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. Our Lord Jesus Christ, as the most holy God, Himself had no need of baptism, but was baptized for us sinners.
a) He was baptized, first of all, in order to show us an example of Holy Baptism, so that, as He Himself was baptized, so all of us, His followers, would be baptized. According to this example of Christ, we are all baptized, and without baptism it is impossible to be saved, as the Lord said in the Gospel: “Unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the Kingdom of God” (John 3:5).
b) Secondly, Jesus Christ was baptized in order to sanctify the waters, to cleanse them from evil demons, and thus to prepare the waters for the saving font for our baptism, as the Holy Church says: “You sanctified the streams of Jordan and crushed the heads of the serpents nesting there” (The Rite of the Sanctification of the Waters of Theophany).
c) The Lord Jesus Christ, thirdly, was baptized in order to reveal to people the Holy Trinity - God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit - as, indeed, the Holy Trinity was revealed at the Jordan River during the baptism of Christ: the Son of God was baptized in water, God the Father with His voice testified of Christ as His beloved Son, and the Holy Spirit descended upon Christ in the form of a dove, as the Holy Church glorifies the Holy Trinity on the feast of the Baptism: "When You were baptized in the Jordan, O Lord, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest; for the voice of the Father testified to You, calling You His beloved Son; and the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the truth of the word" (Troparion of the Holy Theophany). For this reason, the feast of the Holy Baptism is called the Theophany.
II. And why do we, Christians, baptize ourselves in water?
a) So that, while being visibly washed in the font with water, at the same time we are invisibly washed, cleansed by the Holy Spirit from sins, from the original sin, or primordial sin, which passes from the first parents Adam and Eve to all their descendants by birth, and from our own sins, when we are baptized not in infancy, but in adulthood.
b) For this, further, we are baptized in order to prepare ourselves through Holy Baptism to receive the Holy Spirit, to become His temple, which we are honored with following baptism in Holy Chrismation.
c) Finally, we are also baptized in order to become capable, disposed and willing to do good, and worthy of eternal salvation, eternal blessedness: “Let every one of you be baptized,” teaches the word of God, “and receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38); “He who has faith and is baptized will be saved” (Luke 16:16).
III. Let us give thanks to our Savior, that by His baptism He has bestowed upon us so many blessings through our own baptism, and let us express our gratitude by “worthily walking in the Christian calling,” to which we are called through Holy Baptism, with pure and bright thoughts, sound words, and virtuous deeds; “that our whole spirit and soul and body may be preserved blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus” (1 Thess. 5:23). Amen.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
