In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and
of the Holy Spirit. Amen. St. Matthew frames
the beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ as
the Nativity, Christmas, the birth of Christ,
which flows out of that long genealogy we heard
a few weeks ago. Today, St. Mark frames the beginning
of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. as the theophany.
In the words we just heard from St. Paul's epistle,
the appearing of God, his manifestation, his
epiphania. As we prepare to enter into the feast,
we need to reflect on St. John the Baptist, who
figures centrally in theophany. It can be easy
to overlook just how big of a deal John the Baptist
really is. Perhaps we might put it, with all
the various necessary changes and caveats, what
the Theotokos is to Christmas, John is to Theophany.
Of course, John doesn't bear or birth God. Rather,
John prepares Israel for the divine fullness,
the manifestation of God in the flesh, the divine
life. accompanied by the Father's voice and the
Spirit's presence, something John himself doesn't
even entirely grasp. If the Theotokos embodies
and perfects all the Old Testament women, John
embodies and perfects all the Old Testament prophets.
In fact, Mark begins his gospel by smashing together
three different texts from the prophets, Exodus,
Malachi, and Isaiah. as if they were one passage
all about John, integrating Isaiah, Malachi,
and Moses into John the Baptist. But these texts
do more than that. They depict John as a member
of the heavenly divine council. Behold, I send
my angel before your face. What the English in
our translation renders as messenger is angulos
in Greek. My angel, underlying why the church
often depicts John with angelic wings in icons,
as a partaker of the angelic life. According
to the gospel text, John is the voice crying
out of Isaiah's angelic counsel in the wilderness.
Prepare the way of the Lord. Moreover, John looks
and acts like Elijah, who was taken up into the
angelic life in the Merkava. into the spirit,
the chariot, the fiery chariot of God. He wears
the same hairy mantle, the same leather belt.
His diet is super strict, eating wild honey and
locusts. These aren't random, arbitrary details.
They reveal his nearness and proximity to God.
The wild honey recalls the manna that God feeds
Israel in the wilderness. which tastes like what?
Honey. Divine honey wafers, divine honey cakes.
The Lord commanded a portion to be preserved
by Moses, Aaron, and the priests throughout all
their generations. Remember, John comes from
a prominent priestly family. The locusts, specifically
deemed kosher to eat in Leviticus, while perhaps
unappetizing to modern sensibilities. They lack
blood, which reveals a life devoted to strict
fasting. It's the same reason we can eat shrimp
on strict fast days, because there is no blood.
In this way, John resembles a Nazarite, a man
who has taken the vow to consecrate and devote
his entire life to God. He fits the picture of
the law and the prophets. And the people notice
these things about him. According to St. Mark,
all of Judea, that is, all of Judah, what remains
geographically of Israel's southern kingdom,
all of Judah go out to him in the wilderness.
All of Jerusalem, all of Judah, all of Jerusalem,
all of the people come to be baptized by John
in the Jordan, to repent, to turn. And he hears
all their confessions. Here, we shouldn't think
of a general confession. He kind of absolves
everyone generally. No, John personally confesses
them all and then personally baptizes them all.
Think about that. How profound that is. All of
Judah, all of Jerusalem, all of the region coming
to John, confessing their sins. baptized by him.
That's John the Baptist. The angelic life, the
life of the prophets, the priests, the Nazarites.
Elijah, come again, to use the Lord's own words.
A first century celebrity, even Josephus, writes
about John. And yet John's entire ministry points
away from himself. What does he say? Essentially.
Whatever I am, whatever I am doing, I am nothing.
I am nothing compared to the one who is coming.
I am not worthy. I am not oxios. I'm not worthy
to fall down before him and touch his sandals,
let alone his feet. It's not about John. It's
not about what John has accrued, what John has
built up, what John has accomplished in his ministry,
in his life. And there's no false pretense. There's
no false piety, outward humility in John. John
has emptied himself. John has repented his own
life. That is, he has... turned it entirely toward
God, toward the divine life, and has lived out
the angelic life on earth. My angel I send before
you. According to the gospel text, repentance
characterizes the preparation for theophany.
Theophany fulfills Christmas, the fullness of
God's appearing. At Christmas, Christ comes to
Mary, to her surprise, the empty virginal womb
full of potential and vitality. At Theophany,
Christ comes to John, again, to his surprise,
to John, who has emptied his entire life for
Christ's sake. Before Christ has even been raised
from the dead, he has not witnessed the resurrection.
He has already emptied his entire life. For Christ,
he who has died to self and turned himself entirely
toward God so that the divine face itself can
appear before his angelic messenger. In this
way, John already resembles Christ, one in whose
heart Christmas has dawned. Christ is born as
Christ prepares to draw near to John for baptism
to shine before him. Brothers and sisters, it
forces us to ask the question, if we sat with
ourselves in the wilderness, as it were, the
place that is toward the divine silence alone
with God, where would we find our hearts at?
Where would we find our lives at? Could we sit
in silence? And emptiness with God. In some sense
we're always wandering in the wilderness toward
God. Preparing for the divine life. Preparing
for the divine fullness. As we wander in the
darkness with the light shining at the end. Sometimes
we can see that light only dimly. As if it's
not shining but simply flickering. That has more
to do with our own sight. The purity of our hearts
to see God. as we sing every Lord's Day and the
Beatitudes. What is the character of our preparation,
our waiting, our entire life of repentance, our
looking and turning toward God? John illustrates
the heart toward which Christ draws near and
then shines upon. We just celebrated St. Seraphim,
and we just heard his grace, recall and reflect
on that profound quote, acquire the Holy Spirit
and thousands around you will be saved. Look
at John shining as people draw near. They want
to be near him. Christ wants to be near him.
It's like that guy who keeps coming to St. Anthony.
over and over again in the wilderness and doesn't
say anything. He doesn't speak at all when he
comes. And St. Anthony finally asks him, do you
want to ask me anything? No, Abba Anthony. It's
enough for me to be in your presence. Are we
cultivating that kind of inner life where the
hidden person of the heart, the inner man that's
springing forth from us, is he attracting people
towards? Not because of us, but because Christ
is born in us, dwelling in us, shining in us,
forming in us, rooted in us. John has that. John
has that life. His entire life is conformed to
that. He will die before the resurrection. Yet
all he says is, I baptize you with water. The
one coming will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.
St. Mark calls our attention to the beginning.
All four gospels do in their own way. But St.
Mark calls our attention to the beginning. The
are he of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The beginning
of the gospel of Jesus Christ. The beginning,
of course, recalls Genesis. Creation. where the
Spirit of God, that is the Holy Spirit, broods
and first hovers like a bird over the depths,
over the roaring and chaotic waters, as divine
light bursts forth into creation, appearing through
the divine voice speaking. Theophany immerses
us into this creational reality. as the Holy
Spirit hovers over the chaotic waters of Genesis,
subduing them, ordering them, and constituting
them toward their created and rightfully divine
purpose. In Theophany, the Holy Spirit rests
upon Christ our God as he enters into the waters
of Jordan, reconstituting them, subduing them,
trampling down their evil, Leviathan -like, monster
-like, demonic -like, as we still pray every
time we baptize someone. But before we enter
into theophany, John announces that that same
Holy Spirit who will rest on Christ in his baptism,
he comes upon us as we enter into those reconstituted
and now life -giving waters of baptism to fill
us with light, to fill us with the fire of God.
as St. Matthew will add, to set us aflame for
Christ. As the Desert Fathers put it, to be aflame,
to be all fire, to make us children of the light.
What we hear on Theophany, spoken over Christ,
brothers and sisters, we hear spoken over us
in our baptisms. A divine voice speaks, the Father.
This is my beloved Son. What St. Paul envisions
elsewhere is Christ formed in us the hope of
glory, that we would not only bear his image
born in us as we go down into the waters, but
we would become like him, that we would bear
the likeness of his resurrection. In this baptism,
the Holy Spirit rests upon us to empower and
help us repent, to help us to aid us, to strengthen
us, to fortify us so that we might make it through
the wilderness of life. In that wilderness, let
us empty ourselves before him. As we enter into
a new year, which theophany conveniently corresponds
with, let us remember again our baptisms and
let us renew our repentance. Let us turn our
lives again toward God as we prepare for this
great feast. Let us love him because he loves
us so that that love might appear in us, that
it might spring out of our inner man, that it
might bubble up to that surface, that water might
seep into us like we are sponges. and might burst
out of us and spill out toward others so that
they might have that living water. Even those
who don't love us, that we might be made to be
people who people want to draw near to, that
it would be enough for them to simply sit in
our presence. Not because of us, but because
Christ is being formed in us. Let us always seek
Christ. And when Christ appears at last, we will
appear like him and with him in glory. Amen.