Epiphany 2007

I had the opportunity to give the Epiphany sermon at my home parish in Tampa. Enjoy!

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In the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit- Amen

Beloved Achen, my brothers and sisters in Christ…

Today we commemorate one of the most hallowed feasts of the Church calendar, the Feast of Epiphany. On this day, we recall the Baptism of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

The burning question this Feast poses to us gathered here today, is why Jesus Christ, the Son of God, whom John the Baptist refers to as the “lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world;” why this very same Jesus Christ who we believe is without sin; why does He need Baptism. Our traditional explanations for Baptism fail to explain this. If Baptism is for the washing away of our sins, what sins does our Lord Jesus Christ need washed away? Does Jesus, God Incarnate, need to be born again? We know that Christ has no need for any sort of renewal. Indeed, He was born as the perfection of all Humanity. However, Christ willingly submits Himself to be baptized in the waters of the River Jordan.

In St. Matthew’s parallel description of Christ’s Baptism, John the Baptist refuses to baptize Christ.

“I need to be baptized by You, and are You coming to me?”

and Christ answers him:

“Permit it to be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness”

You see Christ, in His unfailing Love for man, is baptized in accordance with the great and righteous plan for man’s salvation. In being immersed in the waters of the River Jordan, Christ consecrates the sacrament of Baptism for all humanity, by being Himself the first to undergo the fulfilled Baptism given to the Church. Whereas before, John the Baptist would baptize men as a means of purification in anticipation of the Christ; now, Christ consummates Baptism as a means of being bound to Him.

How awe-inspiring is it then that in the midst of Jesus’ Baptism that the Holy Spirit descends upon Him like a dove? How amazing is it that we hear the voice of God the Father say, “This is my beloved son in whom I am well pleased.” We refer to this day as the Epiphany, literally the appearance from above, but it may also be referred to as the Theophany, the appearance of God. And God, Who exists from all eternity as the Holy Trinity is explicitly seen as hallowing the baptismal waters for all men, and in so doing, makes manifest the Holy Trinity to the people of Israel.

We must remember how fundamental Baptism is in the ministry of Christ and His Disciples, and consequently, in the Church today. Both of the lectionary readings for today from the book of Acts describe the baptism of newly converted people. We see how the disciples of John the Baptist, who had received the baptism of repentance from John the Baptist, were given the baptism of rebirth at the hands of St. Paul. We see how the Ethiopian Eunuch, found water in the desert, and asked Philip the Deacon to baptize him upon his being convinced that Jesus was indeed the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecy.

If baptism were merely symbolic, merely a ritual undertaken by those who had already chosen Christ in their minds, then all of this labor Christ and the Apostles put into baptizing all the believers would have been meaningless. However, Christianity is not merely a mental exercise. Christ does indeed wish for us to change our hearts and our minds; but he also commands the disciples to baptize all nations in the name of the Father, Son, and the Holy Spirit. Therefore, there must be something so important about baptism, so necessary that we cannot merely discard it as a formality.

I had previously mentioned that Christ consecrated baptism for the Church, His believing people, by Himself being the first subject of the new baptism. I cannot emphasize enough how real this Sacrament is. We all have been taught how the elements of bread and wine become the Body and Blood of our Lord Jesus Christ in a very real albeit mystical sense. In the same way, in the waters of Baptism, we experience a very real and mysterious death and rebirth. St. Paul writes to the Romans:

“…Do you not know that as many of us were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into His death? Therefore we were buried with Him through baptism into death, that just as Christ was raised from the dead by the glory of the Father, even so we shall walk in the newness of Life”

We may die to the power of sin and resurrect to the newness of Life, precisely because through Christ’s Baptism, and our subsequent individual Baptisms in our lives, we become bound to Christ in a very real sense. As Christ died on the cross, and resurrected on the third day, so we too, in the waters of Baptism, die with Christ and rise with Him.

On this day that we recall the Epiphany, we venerate that most basic element which the Lord chose from the very beginning, to accomplish this task of granting us regeneration and rebirth into the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have our Salvation. From the very beginning, the Holy Spirit hovered over the waters in the book of Genesis. Recall how God saved Noah and renewed humanity through the great flood, and how God led Moses and his chosen people through the parted waters of the Red Sea. These were all a type, a foreshadowing of the sacrament given to us in the Church.

In today’s Gospel reading, during the Blessing of the Water Service, Christ tells the Samaritan woman that whoever drinks of the water that He shall give will never thirst, but have in him a fountain of water springing up into everlasting life. The Holy Spirit, sanctifies the material of water, and through water, that most precious constituent of life, we attain to Salvation through Christ Jesus. What was once simple and morally neutral, devoid of any particular meaning, has now, by the glorious work of the manifested Holy Trinity, been consecrated to the Divine Purpose of Salvation for all men.

Having said all of this, let us remember that our baptism brings us into the newness of life in Christ, but requires from each and every one of us, a commitment to a life worthy of God’s such wondrous mercies. Let us honor our Baptismal covenant, and commit ourselves and one another unto Christ our God, to Him belongs glory, honor, praise, and thanksgiving. Amen.

-Steve K
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