Homily of His Beatitude Sviatoslav on the Feast of the Theophany of Our Lord
When You, O Lord, were baptized in the Jordan,
the worship of the Trinity was made manifest
(Troparion of the Feast).
Your Excellencies, venerable hierarchs!
Reverend Fathers!
Dear brothers and sisters in Christ!
Christ is baptized in the Jordan! Let us glorify Him!
Today the Church of Christ celebrates one of the greatest Christian feasts—the Theophany of Our Lord. This feast allows us not only to hear about a key event of the New Testament, recalled by all four Evangelists, but also to enter into it as living participants. Through the Divine Liturgy and the rites of the Great Blessing of Water, we become witnesses to what the Church experiences and glorifies today.
The Evangelist Matthew proclaims to us (3:13–17) that Christ comes to the Jordan. What the prophet and forerunner John the Baptist foretold and prepared for is fulfilled. Christ comes—and this moment of His presence, His immersion in the baptismal waters, the moment when God bows His head before His own creation, we call Theophany.
When Christ came up out of the water, the heavens were opened. The Father spoke, as if presenting His Son to humanity: “This is My beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased” (Matt. 3:17). The Holy Spirit appeared in the form of a dove, bearing witness to and confirming the word of the heavenly Father. Over the waters of the Jordan, the revelation of the Most Holy Trinity took place.
That is why Saint John Chrysostom says that the Theophany at the Jordan is the most important manifestation of God in the New Testament: “Here the Trinity was revealed for the first time” (PG 49, 362). We become witnesses to the revelation of the one God in three Persons—Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.
Let us now listen attentively to the dialogue between the Baptist and Jesus, who comes to be baptized. The words we hear from the mouth of the Savior are extraordinarily important and life-giving for us today.
John, who proclaimed the coming of God into human history as a moment of exposure of sin and judgment upon humanity, now beholds divine majesty in the humility of the Creator who enters the waters of the Jordan as an ordinary sinner. Confused and afraid, the Baptist says: “I need to be baptized by You, and yet You come to me?” (Matt. 3:14). In other words: “It is You, Jesus, who should expose my sins, for You are the sinless God.” In response, Christ speaks life-giving words to him: “Let it be so now; for it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15).
This phrase has two parts. Christ seems to pause the mission of the “accuser,” saying: “Let it be so now…”. John was accustomed to sinners opening the depths of their hearts before him, revealing what was most hidden. But now, before his eyes, the depth of the mystery of the Most Holy Trinity is revealed—the immeasurable holiness of our God.
The words “to fulfill all righteousness” do not mean truth in itself, but God’s righteousness. The Gospel term dikaiosýnē (δικαιοσύνη) unites the meanings of righteousness and holiness. At the moment of His baptism, the Lord reveals His holiness to sinful humanity. In His humility, the greatness of the one Holy God is made manifest. Therefore, in the baptism of Christ, humanity hears not a word of accusation, but a word of hope—hope for salvation, for divine adoption, for the transformation that the Son of God brings into the waters of the Jordan.
“When You, O Lord, were baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest”—these words of the troparion, which we know by heart and sing at the Divine Liturgy, belong to Saint Gregory the Theologian. Explaining the mystery of the Lord’s Baptism, he speaks of the Trinitarian worship revealed over the Jordan:
“Christ is illumined—let us also be illumined with Him. Christ is baptized—let us go down with Him into the water, that we may come up cleansed. Today the worship of the Trinity is revealed: the Father bears witness, the Son receives baptism, and the Spirit confirms” (Oration on Holy Lights, Oratio 39, 14–16; PG 36, 348–352).
Saint Gregory points out that, on the one hand, the inner relationships of the Persons of the Most Holy Trinity are revealed over the Jordan. We see how the Father loves the Son, how the Son worships the Father. We also see how the Holy Spirit appears in the form of a dove and bears witness that Jesus is the Christ—the Anointed One of God—whom the Father anointed with the Holy Spirit even before the creation of the world. This unique and rare divine manifestation has its prefiguration in Sacred Scripture: the dove carrying a fresh olive branch over the waters after the flood—a sign that brought Noah the message that God’s punishment for human sin had come to an end (cf. Gen. 8:8–12). This gesture signified the end of hostility between God the Creator and His creation. From that time on, the dove became a symbol of peace for humanity.
On the other hand, Gregory says, this Trinitarian worship signifies a new kind of relationship between God and humanity. Today we receive a revelation of the nature of Christian worship, Christian piety, and the meaning of Christian veneration of God—a way of worship that no one else possesses. This Trinitarian worship is nothing other than worship of the Father in spirit and truth, of which Christ spoke to the Samaritan woman: “True worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth” (John 4:23). That truth is Christ. And to be in Him, to abide in the truth, is possible only by the power and action of the Holy Spirit. We are able to worship the Father as the only-begotten Son worships Him only when, through the Mystery of Baptism, immersed into the Person of Jesus Christ, we become Spirit-bearing sons and daughters of God. Only then can we worship the Father in spirit and truth.
This Trinitarian worship, revealed today over the Jordan, is the way of life of every Christian, every son and daughter of our heavenly Father. In His Baptism, Christ reveals the holiness of God in order to sanctify us. The Lord humbles Himself before His creation to reconcile us with Himself. Saint Cyril of Alexandria says: “In the Jordan not only is the water sanctified, but the very nature of those who worship is transformed” (In Joannem, PG 73, 232 A). By sanctifying the waters of the Jordan, the Lord does so in order to transform us—those who worship Him. Today the Holy Spirit descends upon Christ in order to rest upon each one of us.
When, immersed in the inner life of the Most Holy Trinity, we are anointed with the Holy Spirit as Christ Himself is anointed, we become an unconquerable people. Before our inner, spiritual, renewed strength in God, the ruler of this world will retreat, just as Pharaoh and his army were drowned in the waters of the Red Sea. To worship the heavenly Father as His Spirit-bearing, only-begotten Son worships Him—by the power and action of the Holy Spirit—this is what Trinitarian worship, revealed to us today over the Jordan, truly means.
Yet in Ukraine today, the feast of the Theophany at the Jordan also becomes a moment of great misunderstanding among our people. You have probably noticed that every year, when we go to the Dnipro River to bless the waters, we see people standing and waiting impatiently for the prayer to end so they can be the first to jump into the icy water. This has nothing to do with worshiping the Father in spirit and truth, nor with the Mystery of Baptism. It is a pagan ritual, foreign to our people, which replaces the true meaning of the feast called the Baptism of the Lord.
Let us strive today to experience this feast as a renewal of our Christian identity, of our calling to be Christians of the third millennium—children of God who worship the Father in spirit and truth alone, and not the forces of nature or extreme temperatures that surround us. Let us renew the seal of the Mystery of Baptism, renew the fire of the Holy Spirit of the Mystery of Chrismation, and continue our journey as sons and daughters of God who know how to serve the Father in spirit and truth.
Saint Cyril of Jerusalem teaches: “The Spirit descends upon the Son of God so that through the Son He might come to us as well” (Catechetical Lecture III, 11–12; PG 33, 440–441). And it is precisely this sanctification by the Spirit of God, the Spirit of the Son who descended into the waters of the Jordan, that is given to us through Holy Communion and the sprinkling with blessed water on this holy feast of Theophany.
I greet you on this feast! I wish that on this day you may be warmed by the power of the love of the Holy Spirit, renewed and enlightened by the power of the holiness and righteousness of God, which He reveals and bestows upon us today. May each of you hear these words as addressed personally to you: “You are My beloved son; you are My beloved daughter; in you I am well pleased” (cf. Matt. 3:17). Amen.
Christ is baptized!
† SVIATOSLAV
