Listen up, heathen. Today we celebrated the Baptism of Christ and with it an epiphany. What do we see as Christ goes down into the Jordan?
The Holy Spirit descending upon him like a dove, and our minds go to the Spirit hovering over the waters of creation and Noah's dove, finding dry ground. And so he is. In Christ, mankind's recreated and finds dry ground, a new creation over the waters of our fallen deluge. No wonder, he is the Father's only begotten son.
Thou art my son, with thee I am well pleased, speaks the divine voice from glory. Consider the echo from psalm two. Thou art my son, this day have I begotten thee. Such is Christ, begotten of the Father in the timeless day of eternity. The poetry of Proverbs speaks:
I was set up from everlasting, from the beginning, or ever the earth was. When there were no depths, I was brought forth; when there were no fountains abounding with water. Before the mountains were settled, before the hills was I brought forth... when he appointed the foundations of the earth: Then I was by him, as one brought up with him: and I was daily his delight, rejoicing always before him...
And St. John puts it with implacable force and simplicity:
In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by Him and without Him was not anything made that was made.
Jesus Christ is the only begotten Son of the Father, God from God, Light from Light, very God of very God, begotten not made. The Word made Flesh. As such he is utterly holy, utterly righteous and infinitely full of the perfection and infinite power of God. Power to save fallen mankind, as foretold by Isaiah:
...a light of the Gentiles; To open the eyes of the blind, to bring out the prisoners from the prison, and them that sit in darkness out of the prison house.
He has power, as God's Son, to redeem. But where is his power exercised, where is the strength of his arm outsretched in might? On Calvary. We see a glimmer of this in Our Lord's baptism.
Christ goes down into the waters of the Jordan to receive John's baptism of repentance. He, who is sinless, does so in humility, love and solidarity with fallen man; humility and love which will take him to Golgotha and the destruction of sin, death and Satan.
As adopted sons of God, we are invited to share in his victory, won on the hard wood of the Cross. Rejoice in that.
By the grace of God,
LSP
