The Theophany

Everything the Forerunner is for converges at the Jordan. Jesus comes from Galilee to be baptized by John, who protests — “I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?” — and is answered, “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matt. 3:14–15). At the baptism the heavens open, the Spirit descends as a dove, and the Father’s voice is heard, so that the Holy Trinity is manifested at once: hence the feast is called Theophany, the “manifestation of God.” This file follows the event from the Baptist’s side — his reluctance, the patristic answers to why the sinless Christ is baptized, the revelation of the Trinity, and the keeping of the feast among the Great Feasts with the Synaxis of the Forerunner on the day after.

Tradition: Pan-Orthodox (Forerunner)

The Coming to the Jordan

All four Gospels bring the Lord to the Jordan, and the Synoptics narrate the baptism itself. “Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to John, to be baptized by him” (Matt. 3:13). Mark, with his customary brevity, records simply, “In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan” (Mark 1:9), and Luke sets it within the general baptism of the people: “when all the people were baptized, and when Jesus also had been baptized and was praying, the heaven was opened” (Luke 3:21). The Fourth Gospel does not narrate the act but gives the Baptist’s testimony to what he saw (John 1:29–34), treated in the companion file (see Behold the Lamb of God). The convergence of all four witnesses on the Jordan marks this as the hinge of John’s whole vocation: the baptism of repentance he had been preaching (see The Baptism of John) becomes the occasion on which the One greater than he is revealed.

“I Need to Be Baptized by You”

The protest of the Forerunner is preserved uniquely by Matthew, and the Church has never let it fall out of view. “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” (Matt. 3:14). The objection is exactly right as far as it goes: John’s was a baptism of repentance for sinners (Mark 1:4), and the sinless Lord has nothing to repent of; the lesser does not baptize the greater. John has already confessed that he is not worthy to untie the thong of the Lord’s sandal (Mark 1:7; Luke 3:16). The Lord’s answer overrides the objection without denying its premise: “Let it be so now, for thus it is fitting for us to fulfil all righteousness” (Matt. 3:15). The “now” is provisional — the present order of things, in which the Son submits to be baptized, will give way; but for the present it is “fitting,” it belongs to the divine economy. “Then he consented” (Matt. 3:15).

Chrysostom dwells on this exchange at length, asking what righteousness it is that the Lord fulfils. He takes “all righteousness” to mean the whole of the commandments, the entire saving plan to which the Lord submits Himself, so that in being baptized He fulfils the Law’s demand and the Forerunner’s office together (John Chrysostom, Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew 12.1–2; NPNF I/10). The same homilist insists that John’s protest itself testifies to the Lord’s sinlessness: the Baptist would not have drawn back unless he knew that the One before him needed no cleansing (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 12.1; NPNF I/10).

Why the Sinless One Is Baptized

The question the Forerunner raised — why the Lord, who has no sin, receives a baptism of repentance — is answered by the Fathers and by the hymnography not with one reason but with several, each illumining the mystery from a different side.

To fulfil all righteousness. The first answer is the Lord’s own (Matt. 3:15): He submits to the whole economy of salvation, taking the lowest place, “made under the law” (cf. Gal. 4:4), that He might fulfil and so complete what John’s baptism foreshadowed. Chrysostom presses this as the Lord’s humility and obedience, by which He keeps the Law in order to bring it to its end (Hom. Matt. 12.1–3; NPNF I/10).

To sanctify the waters. The most characteristic Orthodox answer is that Christ is not cleansed by the water but cleanses it: descending into the Jordan, He sanctifies the whole nature of the waters and, through them, makes baptism the laver of regeneration for all who come after. This is the dominant note of the Theophany hymnography. The Festal Menaion sings that the Lord, “wrapping Himself in the waters of the Jordan” as in a garment, hallows the streams and “the nature of the waters is sanctified” by His descent (The Festal Menaion, trans. Mary and Ware, the Feast of the Theophany; cf. the Great Blessing of the Waters). What the sinless One receives at the Jordan He gives to the Church’s font (see Baptism and Chrismation).

To manifest the Trinity. A third answer looks to what the baptism reveals: it is the occasion chosen for the manifestation of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit together, the public unveiling of the triune God at the threshold of the Lord’s ministry. The hymns of the feast return to this constantly — “the worship of the Trinity was made manifest” (Festal Menaion, Theophany, troparion of the feast).

To be made known to Israel. A fourth answer is the Forerunner’s own stated purpose: “for this I came baptizing with water, that he might be revealed to Israel” (John 1:31). The whole point of John’s baptism, on this reading, was to provide the setting in which the Messiah could be pointed out — the sign of the descending Spirit by which John would know and proclaim Him (John 1:33–34). The baptism of Christ is thus the goal of the baptism of John.

The Manifestation of God

What follows the baptism is the Theophany proper, and the three Synoptics agree on its threefold shape. “And when Jesus was baptized, he went up immediately from the water, and behold, the heavens were opened and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove, and alighting on him; and lo, a voice from heaven, saying, ‘This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased’” (Matt. 3:16–17). Mark and Luke confirm each element — the opened heavens, the descending Spirit, the voice (Mark 1:10–11; Luke 3:22). In one moment the Father speaks from heaven, the Son stands in the water, and the Spirit descends and rests upon Him: the one God in three Persons is shown forth at the Jordan. This is why the feast is named Theophany (Greek Theophaneia, “manifestation of God”) and, in the West, Epiphany. The troparion of the feast makes the Trinitarian reading explicit: “When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest; for the voice of the Father bare witness to Thee, calling Thee His beloved Son, and the Spirit in the form of a dove confirmed the truth of His word” (Festal Menaion, Theophany, apolytikion). The Trinity revealed at the Jordan is the central dogmatic content of the feast (see The Holy Trinity).

The Fathers handle the dove with care: the Spirit did not become a dove or take a dove’s nature, but appeared “in the form of a dove” (cf. Luke 3:22), the visible sign accommodated to human sight, even as the voice was an audible sign of the Father. Chrysostom asks why the Spirit came “in the form of a dove” and answers from the type of Noah’s dove, which announced the end of the flood and the return of peace: so the Spirit at the Jordan announces the deliverance of the world and the reconciliation of God with man (Chrysostom, Hom. Matt. 12.3; NPNF I/10). The point guarded throughout is that the dove is a manifestation, not the Spirit’s essence — the same discipline the tradition keeps wherever God is shown under a created sign.

The Feast of Theophany and the Synaxis of the Forerunner

Theophany is one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the Church year, kept on January 6 (the date on the civil calendar varying with the Old- and New-Calendar reckonings), and one of the most ancient — joined in antiquity with the Nativity before the two were distinguished (see The Great Feasts; on the cycle, The Cycle of Feasts). Its services are among the richest in the Menaion, and they are crowned by the Great Blessing of the Waters, in which the Church re-presents the sanctification of the waters worked at the Jordan. The hymnography of the feast is the work of the great melodists — among them St. Romanos and St. Andrew of Crete — whose kontakia and canons give the Church its sustained theological commentary on the event (see St. Romanos the Melodist and St. Andrew of Crete).

The day after the feast, January 7, the Church keeps the Synaxis of the Holy Glorious Prophet, Forerunner, and Baptist John — the gathering in honor of the one whose hand baptized the Lord. The pattern is the Church’s settled custom of honoring, on the morrow of a Great Feast, the chief human agent of the mystery: as the day after the Nativity of Christ honors the Theotokos, so the day after Theophany honors the Forerunner, who stood at the Jordan and rendered to the Master the service from which the feast takes its meaning. The Synaxis thus belongs to the Theophany as the Forerunner belongs to the One he baptized: the feast is of the Lord, and the morrow is of the friend who made ready His way (see The Cycle of Feasts; on John’s continued self-effacement, The Friend of the Bridegroom).

References

The Gospel According to Matthew 3:13–17; Mark 1:9–11; Luke 3:21–22; John 1:29–34. Revised Standard Version. (The coming to the Jordan; John’s protest and “to fulfil all righteousness,” Matt. 3:14–15, unique to Matthew; the opened heavens, the dove, and the Father’s voice, Matt. 3:16–17 and parallels.)
John Chrysostom. Homilies on the Gospel of Matthew, Homily 12 (on Matt. 3:13–17). Trans. in Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Series I, Vol. 10. (Why the sinless Christ is baptized; “all righteousness” as the whole economy; John’s protest as witness to the Lord’s sinlessness; the dove and the type of Noah’s dove.)
The Festal Menaion. Trans. Mother Mary and Archimandrite Kallistos Ware. London: Faber & Faber, 1969. (The service of the Theophany, the apolytikion “When Thou, O Lord, wast baptized in the Jordan,” the sanctification of the waters, and the Great Blessing of the Waters; the Synaxis of the Forerunner, January 7.)