Into the Jordan: What We Have Lost

Into the Jordan: What We Have Lost

This past Sunday was the First Sunday after Epiphany when we remember Christ's Baptism. We read the Gospel account, pray the collect for the Baptism, and then kind of move on, and that is still a bit weird for me. It's just a short liturgical moment for us between Epiphany and Ordinary Time.

In my previous Tradition, it was a different story.

While we were remembering the arrival of the Magi following the star on January 6th, our Eastern brothers and sisters were celebrating the Theophany, the manifestation of Christ that we celebrated on Sunday. The difference is, in the East, this is one of the biggest feasts of the liturgical year. There is a service at the parishes to bless the holy water for the year, Eastern Christians go out to rivers and bless the waters, and there's a season between now and Great Lent when homes are blessed (which some of us still do in the Anglican Tradition, but not as commonly as the East).

Our collect reads:

Father in heaven, who at the baptism of Jesus in the River Jordan proclaimed him your beloved Son and anointed him with the Holy Spirit: Grant that all who are baptized into his Name may keep the covenant they have made, and boldly confess him as Lord and Savior; who with you and the Holy Spirit lives and reigns, one God, in glory everlasting. Amen.

And in the East, the troparion, the festal hymn, reads:

When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan,
the worship of the Trinity was made manifest;
for the voice of the Father bore witness to Thee,
calling Thee His beloved Son.And the Spirit, in the likeness of a dove,
confirmed the truthfulness of His word.
O Christ our God, Who hast revealed Thyself
and hast enlightened the world, glory to Thee.

We're telling the same story, but they're weighted differently.

I feel like we've lost something in the West – not the baptism of Christ, because we remember it, but the importance of it. Theophany, the feast of the Baptism of Christ, is one of the most ancient festal celebrations of the Church, predating Christmas. In the East, they've preserved something so beautiful that, though not lost completely, has been minimized in our parishes – the vision of Christ's baptism as more than a personal act of piety or obedience of Christ, but a cosmic event that sanctifies all of creation.

This isn't about becoming Orthodox. It's about reclaiming what belongs to us—the shared inheritance of the undivided Church, the wisdom of the Fathers, the beauty of the redemption of the Cosmos. Anglicanism has always been a tradition capable of bridging the Christian East and West together.

Why Was the Sinless One Baptized?

As I was preparing for Children's Chapel, I was reading the story of Christ's Baptism with fresh eyes – how do we teach this to children? And for some reason, St. Matthew's account hit me differently than it had before with a real emphasis on explaining why Jesus, the sinless second person of the Holy Trinity incarnate, would need to be baptized.

John the Baptist is at the Jordan, preaching repentance and baptizing for the forgiveness of sins. Then Jesus comes to him and John is a bit confused - "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?" (Matthew 3:14). It's an understandable reaction, especially when we add this to St. John's Gospel for the Second Sunday of Epiphany when John the Baptist tells us he knew Jesus was the Messiah who would baptize with the Holy Spirit. Why would the sinless Son of God submit to a baptism meant for sinners at the hand of one of His own creation?

Jesus doesn't give us a clear answer when he says, "Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:15).

To answer this question, Western theology has often focused on Christ's humility. Christ the King is identifying himself with humanity, the sinless One joined with the sinners. And this is true, but the Eastern Fathers give us a bit more – in the Christian East, the Baptism of Christ is not really seen as an act of humility, but an act of war and cosmic renewal.

Christ isn't taken down into the waters of the Jordan in baptism to be cleansed, but He enters the water to cleanse. Christ didn't enter the Jordan to be cleansed. He entered to cleanse. He went into the water not because he was dirty, but because creation was tainted.

Saint John of Damascus tells us that Christ was baptized

to bury human sin through water and all of the old Adam, to fulfill the law, to reveal the mystery of the Trinity and, finally, to consecrate 'the essence of water' and to grant us a paradigm and an example of baptism . . . it inspires in us feelings of boundless gratitude to the Enlightener and the Cleanser of our sinful nature; it teaches that our purification and salvation from sin is only by the power of grace of the Holy Spirit; it specifies the necessity of the worthy use of the gifts of the grace of baptism and the protection in purity of those precious garments of which we are reminded on the feast of the Baptism by the words: 'As many as have been baptized into Christ, have put on Christ' (Galatians 3:27); and it commands us towards the purification of our souls and hearts in order to be worthy of the blessed life (An Exposition of the Orthodox Faith).

The Sanctification of the Waters

This is one area of Eastern theology that really stands out to me, in part because my first Orthodox liturgy (or any liturgy or mass) was on the feast of Theophany while I was in college. First, the idea that the Church remembered and celebrated all of the events of Christ's life, not just Christmas and Easter as had been my evangelical/charismatic experience, was eye opening. Secondly, to hear a priest preach about the sanctification of creation blew my mind.

To understand just how important the baptism of Christ was, we need to understand the ordering of creation. In ancient cosmology, water was tied to chaos, death, and the demonic. The deep was where dragons lived. The sea was where Leviathan lurked. When the Psalmist praises God for crushing "the heads of Leviathan" and breaking "the heads of the dragons in the waters" (Psalm 74:13-14), he's not just being poetic; he's describing God's victory over primordial evil.

The Eastern Fathers picked up this theme and ran with it. When Christ entered the Jordan, he wasn't just going into the water. He was invading enemy territory.

Christ descends into the waters as a warrior, confronting the powers of death and chaos in their own domain. And by entering the water in his flesh, he sanctifies it. He takes what was corrupted by sin and reclaims it for God.

St. Gregory of Nazianzus, in his Oration on the Holy Lights, comes out and says,

Jesus comes to sanctify the Jordan for our sake and in readiness for us who were to be baptized; and to sanctify not the Jordan only, but the whole nature of water, and the whole world.

This isn't just about the River Jordan; Christ sanctifies all water and the whole world. This is why we are able to bless things with water. It wasn't about some one river in first-century Palestine. The Baptism of Christ is a cosmic event. Through the Incarnate Word stepping into the water, all of creation begins to be healed.

And this extends to our own baptism as St. Ephrem the Syrian writes in Hymns on Faith, when he says, "Leviathan is trodden down by mortals" through the sacrament - the baptized descend like divers into the water and "snatch their souls from his mouth."

The Icon: Cosmos Realigned

To really illustrate this point, literally and figuratively, let's look at how the Christian East depicts Theophany in icons, which are seen as "theology in color."

Just glancing, this looks pretty simple: Christ is in the River Jordan, John is standing with him, and a dove is coming down in light. But look closer with our understanding of the ancient cosmology.

The Jordan is framed by two rocky banks. On the right, where John stands, is the earthly realm. The left, where the angels stand holding clothes to receive Christ, is the heavenly realm. And there in the middle, bridging the two, spanning this great divide, stands Christ. The God-man bridges heaven and earth with his own body.

It's interesting to see that here Christ is standing in the water. He's not passively submerged or under water. He is standing upright, usually giving a blessing, and illuminating the dark waters around him. Christ is the New Adam. While Adam plunged into sin and dragged creation into darkness, chaos and death, Christ as the second Adam enters the chaos to redeem it. Adam hid from God in shame. Christ stands here openly before all of creation, heaven and earth. Adam's disobedience and sin closed humanity from Paradise. Here Christ fulfills all righteousness and shows how he will reopen it.

Then there's the River Jordan itself. In many icons, the river is personified by an old man fleeing with sea creatures writhing beneath the surface. This isn't just an artistic expression, it's an image of Psalm 114: "The sea looked and fled; the Jordan turned back." The waters of chaos recognize their Master, their Creator, and recoil. What was once a home of demons and terror has now become a vessel of sanctification.

John is standing on the side of earth, humbly bowing his head, touching Christ. It's a reminder that John was the last of the Old Covenant prophets. John stands on the earthly side, bowing low, his hand barely touching Christ's head. He is the last of the Old Covenant prophets now handing off everything to the One that they all have been proclaiming since God promised redemption in Genesis 3. Off to the side, there's an axe at the root of a tree, recalling when John said, "Even now the axe is laid to the root of the trees" (Matthew 3:10). The old order gives way to the new.

The angels are standing by on the heavenly side, holding cloths, ready to receive the King of Creation. It's an image of servants attending their King after a bath. Here, they wait on the Lord of Hosts who descended into enemy waters, emerging victorious as a foretaste of His Resurrection.

In the center of the icon, at the top, the heavens are torn open, with a ray of light surrounding the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, representing the Father's voice. The Trinity, seen only in shadows, is fully revealed to humanity!

The icon shows so much more than the historical vision of Christ's baptism. It shows Christ's baptism as a cosmic reordering. Of heaven and earth being reunited. Of chaos conquered and sanctified. Of Adam's fall undone by the second Adam. Of the Trinity. And all of this is held together by the body of Christ, standing in the River Jordan.

When we look at this icon, we're not just looking at a moment in ancient history. We're looking at what happened to creation itself when God stepped into the river.

Theophany: The Trinity Revealed

I feel it's important to dive a bit further into something I referenced earlier. This is the first time in salvation history that all three Persons of the Trinity are manifested simultaneously and distinctly to human perception. We have typologies, like the visitors to Abraham, but nothing so concrete. That is why we use the name Theophany for this feast; it is the manifestation of God. This isn't just about Christ's baptism; it's about the Trinity being revealed to the world.

For those of us Anglicans formed by the Nicene Creed and the doctrine of the Trinity, this is something that resonates with our celebration of Christ's Baptism. It isn't just a moment in Jesus' personal story, but the unveiling of who God is.

What This Means for Our Baptism

I know, if you've read this far, you may be asking, what does this really have to do with me?

Well, everything.

When you were baptized, you weren't just washed. You entered into the same waters that Christ sanctified. You were united to Him, as St. Paul tells us, in his death and his resurrection. The water poured over you or that you were immersed into carries the grace of the Jordan.

St. Cyril of Jerusalem tells us, "Do not regard the font as mere water, but look upon the spiritual grace that accompanies the water."

Our baptismal fonts aren't just a bathtub or a sink. They are the River Jordan. They are where Christ crushes the dragon. They are where the Trinity is made manifest to all of us. And your baptism, and all baptisms, participate mystically in Christ's baptism.

This is why we take the blessing of water so seriously. In the East, on Theophany, the Great Blessing of Waters sanctifies water that will be used throughout the year for drinking, for sprinkling homes, for blessing the faithful. The prayer is long, ancient, and so rich. It thanks God for how he has worked to redeem humanity with water: in creation, in the flood, in the crossing of the Red Sea, and in the Jordan. And then it asks that this water, too, might be made holy.

We have our own traditions here when we bless water, but many of the faithful don't see or participate in that. Our Christian brothers and sisters remind us that water matters. Matter and creation matter. God works through the physical world to accomplish spiritual realities.

Recovering the Feast

So, what do we do with this?

First, take the Baptism of Our Lord seriously. It's not just a minor Sunday. It's the culmination of the Incarnation cycle; Christmas, Epiphany, and Baptism form a theological unity. The God who was born as a babe in a manger in Bethlehem is manifested to the Magi who saw him through creation by following the star, and is revealed in glory as the second Person of the Trinity. Come to this service and let the liturgy reflect that weight.

Second, recover the blessing of water. If you're a priest, use the full form of blessing the waters. If you're a layperson, ask your priest about having your home blessed with holy water during Epiphanytide and listen closely to the prayers they pray to bless the water. Then listen and respond during the house blessing and understand it's not just a ritual to check off, but a very tangible sacramental theology. God works through physical means to sanctify the world.

I also always recommend reading the Fathers. See how the early Church saw these events. St. Gregory of Nazianzus' Orations 39 and 40 are such great meditations on Theophany and Baptism. St. Ephrem the Syrian's Hymns on the Epiphany are, like all of his writings, poetic and profound in very approachable ways. St. Cyril of Jerusalem's Catechetical Lectures are still some of the best baptismal instructions ever written, which is a big part of why we read them in our parish as part of our Dead Theologians Society. These aren't foreign voices; they're our Christian inheritance.

And, of course, remember your own baptism. Not as a one-time event in the past, but as an ongoing reality. You have been baptized into Christ. You have passed through the waters. The dragon has been defeated. You belong to the God who is Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God who revealed himself at the Jordan. At every baptism, you have an opportunity to renew your baptismal covenant.

What now?

Western Christianity hasn't lost the Baptism of Christ; we remember it on the first Sunday of Epiphany every January. But I do fear we've lost some of the depth, the theology, and reality of Christ's work. We've made it a footnote when it should be a Major Feast.

Of all that I love in our tradition, I do miss Theophany in the East. Their celebration of Theophany, with the public water blessings, hymnography, and its insistence that the whole cosmos was changed when Christ entered the Jordan, doesn't need to be foreign to us. It's part of our shared inheritance, the faith of the undivided Church.

And it's ours to reclaim.

The next time you hear the Gospel of Christ's baptism read in church, don't just listen for the dove and the voice. Sit silently and listen for the head of Leviathan being crushed. Listen for the waters of chaos being tamed. And listen for the Trinity being revealed to the world.

And remember: you were baptized into all of that.