For 300-million Christians, the feast of Epiphany is about Christ’s baptism, but what is the deeper meaning of this feast? Why do the Orthodox drench everything with water? What’s up with that?
On January 6th, the Eastern Orthodox Church celebrates Epiphany, which is also known as Theophany.
Both words have similar meanings.
Epiphany literally means the manifestation of something.
Theophany, on the other hand, means the manifestation specifically of God.
In Western Christianity, this feast primarily celebrates the manifestation of God to the Gentiles, as symbolized by the visit of the Magi, or wise men (Matthew 2:11).
THEOPHANY CELEBRATES CHRIST’S BAPTISM!
For us, however, as Orthodox Christians, this feast celebrates the manifestation of God as Trinity, and this revelation came about at the baptism of Christ.
Even though Christ was already revealed to the shepherds as God in the flesh and, later, to the magi, it was at his baptism that the world learned, for the first time, that God was Trinity: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
The Apolytikion of the Feast says it well:
“At your baptism in the Jordan, O Lord, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest, for the Father’s voice bore You witness by calling you His beloved Son, and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of the Father’s Word…”
You can’t get a hymn more biblical than that!
It comes almost directly out of Scripture:
“And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased.’” (Matthew 3:16-17 RSV)
ORTHODOX CELEBRATIONS INCLUDES A LOT OF WATER
The Orthodox celebrations of this feast have roots in the ancient world.
- We bless Holy Water to distribute to the faithful.
We bless bodies of water outside. Here in Dubuque, we blessed the Mississippi.
- We bless our homes with water, which I’ve been doing all week.
But why, exactly, do we do all of this?
OK, I see the connection between water and the feast…we are celebrating the baptism of Christ, which used water…but weren’t we all already baptized with water?
Why bless water, bodies of water, and homes with water?
Why use water again?
Well, to answer this question, we should look at the prayers used by the church when blessing water!
THE PRAYERS REVEAL GOD AS A SERVANT!
What’s most interesting about these prayers is not that they speak of the revelation of God in Christ, but that they emphasize how God is revealed in Christ.
“In that dispensation, assuming our weak and humble frame, demeaning Yourself to the level of a servant, though King of all, You even condescended to received baptism in the Jordan at a servant’s hands.” (by Patriarch Germanos, d. 740).
As an all powerful God, we would expect him to come in Glory – riding upon a chariot of fire.
But instead, what we see is this God revealing himself as a servant.
We see a creator God who bends his neck down before a created person, as a slave would to his master.
This is not at all what we would expect!
We envision that it’s us who should approach God, bow down and say, “O Lord what can we do for you?”
But instead our Lord comes to us and bows down, bending his neck to St. John.
So, if God becomes a servant for our sake, the question becomes: what sort of service does God perform for us?
GOD GRANTS US HEALING AND SALVATION
The prayers of Theophany continue:
“This so that in sanctifying the nature of the waters, O sinless One, You might open the way for our rebirth by water and the Spirit, and restore us to our former freedom.”
In other words, His service to us is to give us a new way to live – or a way to be reborn, as the prayer says.
“Today the waters of the Jordan are turned into the healing presence of the Lord. …the Master hastens towards baptism so as to raise humankind to the heights. …[He] bows before His own servant, so as to free us from bondage. …[He] submerged in the Jordan the death of disobedience and the sting of error and the bond of Hades, giving the world a baptism of salvation.” (Patriarch of Jerusalem, Sophronios, d. 638).
It seems to me that the prayers are saying that the waters became a means of rebirth and healing, but only because God was willing to be submerged in them.
It also seems that the prayers are telling us that the only way for God to be submerged in the waters, was for him to willingly become a servant and take on a body.
This makes sense; waters can’t flow over an immaterial God!
But guess what! This says a lot about our salvation!
CHRIST’S BAPTISM SHOWS US THE RENEWAL OF ALL FLESH
I don’t mean our salvation by means of our baptism; I mean the big picture!
The only difference is that instead of Christ submerging himself in water, the big picture is that God ‘submerged’ himself in humanity – in human flesh.
The feast reminds us that just as the waters become holy when God enters them, our human flesh becomes holy when God enters into flesh as the person of Jesus Christ.
But the feast doesn’t stop there.
As I said, we take this now holy water and start blessing everything.
The priest drenches the parishioners with it, and then he goes to their homes and businesses and drenches those places as well!
By doing this we extend the blessing given to the water to everything around us.
The whole world gets transformed and blessed by God’s presence.
The incarnation is the same – just because God became man, that doesn’t mean it’s just us humans who are saved.
GOD SUBMERGED HIMSELF IN HUMAN FLESH
When God submerged himself in humanity, the entire world is saved.
St. Symeon the New Theologian put it rightly (and I paraphrase)…when humanity fell from paradise, death entered the world because all of creation was subject to humanity’s rule, but now that humanity has been raised with Christ, all of creation is also raised up and renewed.
So, during the Feast of Theophany we go around drenching everything with water, spreading God’s renewing grace.
But it shouldn’t stop when Theophany ends…
At Theophany, we spread the Good News of our salvation by means of drenching our homes with water, but then we should continue to drench everything and everyone with the Good News by means of our words.
So our challenge now is to change the Holy Water into words and continue to evangelize the world around us.
Let us tell everyone the Good News of Christ submerging himself not only in water, but also in our flesh.
Let us tell everyone the Good News of how Christ became a servant.
Let us tell everyone the Good News of how Christ renews the entire world.
Let us be transformed and go out and bless the world!
So, come this Sunday and enter into the mystery.
St. Elias Services (2001 Asbury Rd, Dubuque, IA)
Sundays, 9:30 am
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