Theophany, Wednesday, January 6th, 2021

“When our Lord reached thirty years from His physical birth, He began His teaching and work of salvation. He Himself signified this ‘beginning of the beginning’ by His Baptism in the Jordan River. St Cyril of Jerusalem says: ‘The beginning of the world is water; the beginning of the Gospel is the Jordan.’ At the time of the Baptism of the Lord in water, the mystery was declared to the world — the mystery that was prophesied in the Old Testament; the mystery that was known only in fables in ancient Egypt and India — the mystery of the Divine Holy Trinity. The Father was revealed to the sense of hearing, the Spirit was revealed to the sense of sight, and the Son was revealed to the sense of touch. The Father spoke His witness about the Son, the Son was baptized in the water, and the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove hovered above the water. When John the Baptist bore witness to Christ, saying: Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, and when John immersed and baptized the Lord in the Jordan, the mission of Christ in the world and the path of our salvation were shown. That is to say, the Lord took upon Himself the sins of mankind and died under them (immersion) and rose again (the coming out of the water); and we must die to the old sinful man and rise again as cleansed, renewed, and regenerated. Here is the Savior and here is the path to salvation. The Feast of Theophany is also called the Feast of Illumination. The event in the Jordan River illuminates us by manifesting God to us as Trinity, consubstantial and undivided. That is one way that we are illumined. And the second way is that every one of us through baptism in water is illumined, because we become adopted by the Father of Lights through the work of the Son and the power of the Holy Spirit. May our eyes always be illumined by the light of Christ, and today let’s receive this gift with humility and obedience, and so let’s live as true children of the Light. Amen!”

From ‘The Prologue from Ohrid: Lives of Saints’ by St Nikolai Velimirovich, Bishop of Zica, Serbia (+1956)