The Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ - 13th January 2025
Icon of the Baptism of Our Lord Jesus Christ written by Christine Hales, artist/Iconographer
This past week as I’ve listened to the office readings for Epiphanytide I’ve been struck by how the whole of Jesus’ life was an epiphany of God. We have heard of various miracles he performed and his teaching about himself, all pointing to ‘here is the creator God’. Our readings at Vigils from the end of the book of Isaiah portrayed a time when all nations and peoples will come to God and there will be peace and plenty for all. The gospels were written to demonstrate that this time had indeed come, with stories like the coming of the magi or turning water into wine pointing to the fulfilment of the prophecies of Isaiah.
I doubt that the writers of the gospels were thinking ‘now I must write about the Epiphany’ as a single event. Our liturgical calendar as it has developed has picked on certain events as ‘The Epiphany’ – in the west it is the visit of the magi that we celebrated a week ago and in the east the baptism of Jesus that we celebrate here at Malling as the octave day of the Epiphany. It’s only in the last couple of years that I’ve found out that this is why our celebration of the baptism is out of kilter with the rest of the Anglican church! The wedding at Cana is another event that is especially picked out during Epiphanytide, as St John says ‘Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.’ [John 2:11] Whichever event we choose we are pondering the manifestation of Jesus’ glory. The multitude of liturgical variations in this season reflect the multitude of ways that Jesus’ glory was seen, in both the hidden-ness of the baby and the overt public ministry of the adult.
I have been particularly drawn to the text from Isaiah chapter 64 that we heard earlier this week: ‘O that you would tear open the heavens and come down’ [Is 64:1], a phrase we sing in our hymn for Christmas Eve. Now we are looking at the reality of how God fulfilled this. That cry is asking for God to come and root out all evil and wickedness, but how is that to happen? God does not override our human wills and so we continue to look out on a world full of violence and ugliness that seems to be getting worse, not better.
Jesus did not impose himself on others but rather invited them in to relationship with him. When he healed he did not ‘zap’ people from afar but instead engaged in conversation, responding to the faith of those who came to him. He did not use his divine power to protect himself from evil but walked the way of the cross, surrendering to the worst that people could do to him. After his death and resurrection he poured out the Spirit upon his followers to enable them to continue his work of ushering in the Kingdom of God person by person.
Today we celebrate the baptism of Jesus, when he goes through the waters in a prefiguring of his death and resurrection, and the sending of the Spirit. It is an event of cosmic significance as he hallows the waters, reuniting heaven and earth as the voice from above names him as the beloved son of God. Through our own baptism we are invited in to Jesus’ work on behalf of the whole cosmos, embodying God’s presence, each one of us in our own unique way. We must constantly revisit our baptismal vows and open ourselves to God’s work in us, allowing ourselves to hear those words ‘You are my beloved child’. As we come to know God’s love in our own hearts we become channels of that love, which flows out where it will in healing for God’s world.
We look out on a world that seems to be going mad and institutional churches that struggle to find their way, that are not the shining lights that Jesus intended. But we must look again and see all the groups of faithful believers who meet week by week to worship and in simple acts of love for one another shine light into dark places, each person an Epiphany of God. We are small and fragile as a community but our lives too can be Epiphanies of God.
Mother Anne - 13th January 2025