The Baptism of Jesus

                                     

Pence writes:

"It was at the Jordan River that Joshua commanded the priests to precede with the Ark of the Covenant, followed by the sons of Israel who – now properly ordered behind the Ark – could enter the Promised Land.

"When Christ emerged from that same river, he was enclosed not by the Ark but revealed in the first manifestation of the Trinity. His Father’s voice proclaimed Him; and the hovering Spirit anointed Him. On this day, the entry of all men to the Promised Land was made possible.

"All the sons of men who would be baptized in the new Adam could now be incorporated in Son-ship with the triune God. Christ’s Baptism washed away Satan, the world, and the flesh – and revealed the sacramental strategy for incorporation in the new Adam.

"The just angels marveled in awe at the new-found glory of man, while Lucifer resentfully plotted a meeting in the desert."

THE BAPTISM OF CHRIST: the Theophany of God and the Baptism of Christ

(first published January 12, 2014)

David Pence writes:  
         
               

                  "... the Sun of righteousness washing in the Jordan,
                                fire immersed in water..."


The Sunday after Epiphany, the Church celebrates the Baptism of Christ. It marks the end of the Christmas season and the beginning of Christ’s public life and “Ordinary Time.” In an older calendar, the Epiphany was celebrated as an eight-day feast. The coming of the Wise Men, the first miracle at Cana, and the most important manifestation – the theophany at Christ’s baptism – were all considered epiphanies which explained the true identity of Jesus Christ. In the Orthodox Churches, the “twelve days of Christmas” are the feast days observed from the birth of Jesus in Bethlehem to his Baptism in the Jordan which is called the feast of the Theophany.

The Baptism of Christ is not merely about God and water, or God and nature, or even God and man’s salvation. This is not just an event of Divine Economy – God’s relation to creation. At the Baptism of Christ, something happened quite unexpected. The Baptism is THEOPHANY – the “appearance of God” – and for the first time Jesus is revealed as Son of God; and God reveals himself as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.

For a moment let us forget about ourselves. Let us even forget about the sacramental order of saving our souls.  Let us contemplate what was revealed here about the reality that preceded the creation of heaven and earth. Let us think of God before Satan rebelled and man fell.

Who could imagine this? God is three in one. There is a reality called personhood, which can be united in love, as many in one. On this day, in the Father’s voice, we are definitively told that Jesus is God. We are shown “the Spirit of God descending on Him like a dove.” This is how the Christmas season ends: with a lesson about the identity of Jesus as Divine, and the nature of God as an interpersonal love relationship that constitutes the ultimate reality.


Lord Jesus Christ, Son of God, have mercy on me a sinner. 

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit.
                              
                     

"Today the nature of the waters is sanctified,
The Jordan bursts forth and turns back the flood of its streams,

Seeing the Master wash Himself.

To the voice of one crying in the wilderness, 

Prepare ye the way of the Lord, 

You came, O Lord, taking the form of a servant, 

Asking for baptism though you have no sin. 

The waters saw You and were afraid. 

The Forerunner began to tremble and cried out, saying: 

How shall the lampstand illumine the Light? 

How shall the servant lay hands upon the Master? 

Sanctify both me and the waters, O Savior, 

Who takes away the sins of the world."

  (Orthodox hymn for Theophany)

The Feast of the Epiphany and the true Age of Enlightenment

[first published January 6, 2016]

by David Pence

                                     

                                       

Epiphany means 'manifestation.' The Christmas season is a series of liturgical celebrations of different events in the life of Christ that manifest who He is, and why calendars all over the world begin their numbering of the years based on His coming. The naming of Jesus and his circumcision complete the Christmas Octave (Jan 1st); the twelve days of Christmas end with the “Christmas for the Gentiles” and the coming of the Magi (kings or wise men) on Jan 6th or the Sunday nearby. For centuries this day was associated with the coming of the Magi, the Baptism of Our Lord and his first miracle at the wedding feast in Cana. All of these were manifestations of the unique event that was celebrated at Christmas. The celebration of Epiphany ends with the manifestation of the Trinity revealed at Christ's baptism by John in the river Jordan. A few other traditions extend the season the full 40 days to his Presentation in the Temple as the first-born Jewish son on Candlemas Day (Feb 2nd).

At the feast of the Epiphany he does not transfigure himself, nor do we hear the voice of God or songs of angels. The scene at the epiphany is three kings representing the monarchs and nations of the world bowing to the King of Kings; and acknowledging that from this birth forth, the destiny of nations would be determined in relation to the new King. Not only human history but all of physical nature is reconfigured to the alpha male of humanity -- the Lord of nature and perfecting head of our species. The star pointing the wise men to his person shows that a new law of personal gravity is in effect that will allow Peter to walk on water, and the human species to escape the sure death awaiting any planet tied to the finite life cycle of a medium-size star. The Star of Bethlehem foreshadows the domination and reorganization of nature that the God of eternal life promises. On this 12th day of Christmas let us promise, with the wise men, that we will always teach the truth of nature and the physical sciences, as well as the meaning of history and the story of nations in light of God -- who made Himself fully known during the true age of Enlightenment: Our Lord’s earthly lifespan 2000 years ago--the axis mundi.

                                                 

"The wise men, seeing him, so fair,

Bow low before him, and with prayer

Their treasured eastern gifts unfold

Of incense, myrrh, and royal gold.

The fragrant incense which they bring,

The gold, proclaim him God and King;

The bitter spicy dust of myrrh

Foreshadows his new sepulchre.

All glory, Lord, to thee we pay

For thine Epiphany today;

All glory, as is ever meet,

To Father and to Paraclete."

Addendum 2019-The three men in history and art by Sandra Meisel.

December 28: The Feast of the Holy Innocents

[first published December 28, 2014]

David Pence writes:


The birth of a baby in Bethlehem 2,000 years ago revealed to chosen witnesses what his mother had kept hidden for nine months, and his Father in heaven had concealed before the foundation of the world. The angels sang hosanna from heaven, three wise rulers knelt to recognize a new kingdom was being established, and all wisdom would be recast in light of the star over the manger. The Jewish shepherds were there to acknowledge their Messiah and keep away the wolves. For whenever innocence and purity show their face in this still-fallen world, the wolves gather to destroy.

The day after Christmas, the Church reminds all whose hearts were warmed by the babe in the manger that Stephen was stoned for attesting to the baby-Savior’s true identity. Three days after Christmas, the Church liturgically remembers the Feast of the Holy Innocents. The three wise kings had bent their knees in homage and conformed their minds in faith. But a proud and ignorant Herod ordered a horrible bloodletting, so the screams of Jewish mothers losing their sons might erase the songs of joyous angels welcoming the Son of God.

Vigilant Joseph was warned in a dream of the danger and led his holy family hundreds of miles across hills and desert to the safety of Egypt. He must have pondered the death of so many sons of his countrymen as he guarded his sacred charges during the flight.

The Church also ponders their deaths on this day, and awards to those Holy Innocents the keys to the kingdom granted to martyred saints. Possibly their deaths and celestial fate may be a lesson for all who have suffered death as an "innocent:" the children at the time of Noah’s flood, the dutiful soldier drowned in the Red Sea, the cremated and tortured prisoners of the tyrants, the villagers buried by molten lava or a raging sea. This day we reflect on how deeply ingrained and inescapable is suffering to the Christian vocation. And, possibly, this day we can also find meaning in those other deaths of innocents -- the child or mother or father who appear on God’s strange and deadly list of patients afflicted by infection or malignancy. May all who experience the mysterious reality of human suffering know the crown of glory bestowed upon the Jewish baby boys who were killed at the births of Moses and of Our Lord.


UPDATE -- From a sermon by Saint Quodvultdeus (a student of Saint Augustine):

"When they tell of one who is born a king, Herod is disturbed. To save his kingdom he resolves to kill him, though if he would have faith in the child, he himself would reign in peace in this life and for ever in the life to come. 

"Why are you afraid, Herod, when you hear of the birth of a king? He does not come to drive you out, but to conquer the devil...  

"How great a gift of grace is here! To what merits of their own do the children owe this kind of victory? They cannot speak, yet they bear witness to Christ. They cannot use their limbs to engage in battle, yet already they bear off the palm of victory."

FINALLY -- on this day, we Americans are mindful of our own slaughter of innocents. In some ways it is more horrible that Rachel, instead of weeping, is the one who brings her babe to be slaughtered for career or convenience. Feminism is a bloody Pharaoh. When the sacred goods and the innocents are defiled, sometimes we must cover our own and flee as did Joseph. Other times we must remember  the Maccabees at Hanukkah and gather our brothers under the Father to stop the evil. For sure, we need a new approach as a profile movement organizing a culture of protection not making one more claim for rights.

Father and Sons Defending the Sacred: The Real Hanukkah Lesson for Christians

by David Pence

Hanukkah begins this evening. It will end in eight days. It is not "the Jewish Christmas." Several hundred years before Christ, the Greeks, the very cosmopolitan educated Greeks, ruled over Palestine. When Antiochus had become the ruler he sought a uniformity of customs and loyalty. Circumcision -- that sign between Abraham and G-d that all the males would shed their own blood to be united as a people in Covenant with the Almighty -- was banned. The sacred precincts of the temple were defiled. Women who had their sons circumcised "were publicly paraded with their babies hanging at their breasts and then thrown from the top of the city wall."

                             

"... the Gentiles filled the temple with debauchery and revelry; they amused themselves with prostitutes and had intercourse with women even in the sacred court. They brought into the temple things that were forbidden, so the altar was covered with abominable offerings prohibited by the law." Most defilements were done by consenting adults and there were plenty of Jewish collaborators. "There was great mourning for Israel. Virgins and young men languished and the beauty of the women was disfigured. Her sanctuary was desolate as a desert. She became a stranger to her own offspring. Her feasts were turned into mourning, her sabbaths to shame, her honor to contempt. Her dishonor was as great as her glory had been and her joy was turned into mourning."

Against this sexual perversity so deeply linked with the defilement of sacral things, Mattathias and his five sons withdrew from the over-educated Greeks who scoffed at their ancient purity codes and rituals of divine worship. Before they organized to fight, the patriarch and the brothers "tore their garments, put on sackcloth and mourned bitterly." They knew the evil that had befallen their fellow Israelites followed their infidelity to G-d. They also knew they must organize to fight. They had seen a group of Israelites come before the Greeks and "refuse to profane the sabbath. Then the enemy attacked them and they did not retaliate... and they died with their wives and their children and their cattle to the number of a thousand persons." Mattathias resolved: "If we all do as our kinsmen have done and do not fight the Gentiles for our lives and our traditions they will soon destroy us from the earth. Let us fight against anyone who attacks us on the sabbath so that we may not all die as our kinsmen died in the hiding places." Mattathias and his men tore down the pagan altars. They also forcibly circumcised any uncircumcised boys they found in the territory of Israel." They stitched back together the only bond capable of ridding the land of abominations. They conscripted their state anew to guard the sacred of old.      
                

Sculpture of Mattathias by Boris Schatz (d. 1932)

"When the time came for Mattathias to die, he said to his sons, 'Arrogance and scorn have now grown strong, it is a time of disaster and violent anger. Therefore, my sons, be zealous for the law and give your lives for the covenant of our fathers." He appointed his son Simeon because of his wisdom to be "like a father to them," and appointed his son Judas (called Maccabeus, the 'hammer') to be "the leader of your army and direct the war against the nations." His sons and the men they gathered around them defeated the Greeks. They tore down the defiled altar and built a new one with uncut stones. They repaired the sanctuary and purified the courts. On the anniversary of the day the Gentiles had defiled the temple they reconsecrated the sacred precinct with song and acts of worship. For eight days they celebrated the dedication, and then "Judas and his brothers and the entire congregation of Israel decreed that the days of the dedication of the altar should be observed with joy and gladness on the anniversary every year for eight days…"

There are many tales of noble martyrs who refused to profane the commands of the Lord before the Maccabees restored a civic order in consonance with G-d's decrees. In the Book of Maccabees the most notable was the mother and her seven sons who refused to defile themselves by eating pork. The holy mother watched her sons be tortured and killed and urged them one after another to persist in courage. Then "her womanly heart with manly courage" was pierced as well. In the Babylonian Talmud there is the story of the miracle of the oil in which one day's supply lasted for eight.  When the Church recounts this re-dedication of the temple in her late November liturgy she couples the reading from Maccabees with the Gospel of Jesus cleansing the temple. Two centuries after the Maccabees, the Jewish convert from Tarsus asked Christians, "Do you not know that you are a temple of the  Holy Spirit?"

For eight days let us Christians look for the lights of the candles shining forth from Jewish homes. They are not lit for the use of the household, but to give glory to G-d by reminding all who see them that the sacred practices of a culture can only be protected if there are fathers and sons who will covenant together under God to fight for them.
                             

Hanukkah candles in Jerusalem