One might ask why Jesus was baptized, given that the fallen human nature He assumed was already deified at His Incarnation, by its “hypostatic” union with His divine nature in the Person of Christ.
“For our benefit,” answer the patristic saints, in that the divinity of Christ is passed on to Creation by the descent of the Holy Spirit on His human nature in the Jordan. One simply needs to add his will to Christ’s in order to be included in the gift. Not even infants are excluded, who receive the grace through the faith of their parents … For it is granted to as many as are buried to sin with Christ in the waters of Orthodox baptism – from which they arise, as He did, to be anointed with the gift of the Holy Spirit.
First bestowed upon the newly-baptized by the laying on of hands of the Apostles who were the first bishops of the Church, the same gift has been received ever since through the holy chrism blessed by their successor bishops.
“Unless anyone be born of water and of the Spirit, he is not able to enter into the kingdom of God,” instructed Christ in John 3.5.
But the ‘gift’ of the Holy Spirit leads to the ‘gifts’ of the Spirit – humility and all the virtues – only through our efforts to live the Truth of Christ – as He Himself did. Thus, Jesus points out that the person who is born of water and the Spirit is “able” to enter the kingdom of God – not that he “will” ….
As the Fathers remind, it is not enough to be born of water and the Spirit, i.e., to be baptized and chrismated. One has to cultivate the grace received; otherwise the fire of divinity bestowed in the Spirit dwindles to a flickering spark. Even in the case of negligence and indifference, they say the spark remains, even if nearly dwindling to ash. Unless carefully tended, however, it will not flame into theosis, the deification of eternal glory in the kingdom of heaven.
Homily of Saint Gregory the Theologian on The Holy Lights (Ta Agia Fota), the Feast of Theophany from Sinai Codex 339, c. 1150.
When Christ arises from the waters of the Jordan, God shines forth the knowledge of Himself in Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. Thus “The Lights” as the Feast of Theophany (the “Shining forth of God”) is still called in Greece.
But how was a society long darkened by the worship of multiple gods to understand one God in three Persons?
Even the Patristic saints had no way to distinguish the Persons of the Trinity beyond the manner of their origin: The Son is born of the Father, from whom the Holy Spirit proceeds. Both have their origin in the Father, but no one understands the difference between “generation” and “procession.” What the Fathers do understand is that God is One because there is one Source of Being in the Holy Trinity.
This could not have greater significance in our own lives, because it means that gifts of the Spirit reach us through the Son, originating not in ourselves, but in the “Father of Lights” – the Source of “every good and perfect gift.”
Throughout the Sinai literature, one finds recurring emphasis on the image of this triune unity engraved upon human nature, accounting for its strengths, creativity, and potential … If human desire generates struggle for good or for evil, then, does the soul’s fate hinge on struggle – or the desire that inspires it?
Clearly, inborn desire must be purified before its intentions can be trusted … It must die to sin in water, and be born to God in the Spirit …
Did Christ not say “the kingdom of God is within you”?
Silver chandelier with oil candles from Ioannina, 1752.
Immediately following His baptism and reception of the Spirit in the Jordan, the Word of God goes into the desert where He conquers temptation with His Truth for forty days, at the conclusion of which, angels minister to Him.
Similarly, our own baptism gives birth to struggle to live His Truth, through which our guardian angel ministers to our every need. Clearly, struggle and salvation have their origin in baptism – but how? Archbishop Damianos solved this mystery: God restores the powers of our weakened self-determination when we seek His forgiveness.
If baptism grants the forgiveness of God for our apostasy from His love, what proves this more dramatically than the descent of the Spirit on the humanity of Christ in the Jordan – the Holy Spirit who had fled that humanity at its apostasy from grace?
Attributes of the divine image – freedom to love, choose, reason – were not lost, however. With baptism’s purification of all three, they give birth to struggle, through which gifts of the Spirit – virtues of the divine likeness – proceed.
The theology of Orthodox worship is so simple: The Father gives birth to the Son, through whom the Holy Spirit proceeds to sanctify souls. Likewise, following Orthodox baptism in the name of the Holy Trinity, our native faculties generate the struggle through which virtue proceeds to bless creation.
“Orthodox worship is communal,” said His Eminence, Archbishop Damianos of Sinai – “but also theological,” taking place not only during the liturgical services, but, through struggle toward theosis, during every moment of this life – which is thereby rendered liturgy.
A very different model, one rejected by the Orthodox Church, has the Spirit proceeding from both Father and Son. On such a model, virtue would proceed not from our God-given attributes, but from those attributes and our human struggle both … But human struggle can never give origin to virtue. There is one God because there is one Source of Life, one Source of every good and perfect gift …
Man never shares in God’s divine nature, but only in His grace, emphasizes Orthodox doctrine, shuddering at the demonic arrogance that envisions equality with the Creator.
Gilded silver basin from the Sinai collections, Augsburg, c. 1620.
Does such a model not account for the “self-sufficiency” with which a “post-Christian” society exchanges the Way of baptism, the Truth of Christ, and the Life of His kingdom with the ambitions of its own logic? Where does such darkness ultimately lead except to suicide of soul, even of body, in futile search for the “rest from thoughts” proceeding only from God?
Failure to trust in God prevented many of the Israelites rescued by Moses from reaching the promised land – almost the entire generation that escaped Egypt. Stumbling in his own faith, Moses himself was barred from entering the land symbolizing the grace of God.
Anyone who sacrificed a lifetime’s toils to a great hope only to watch it ebb away like a wave from the seashore cannot but empathize. But if, as Saint Basil says, God deliberately employs such dire examples in the scriptures to stir the soul into renouncing “its inveterate habit of sin ,” Moses’ misfortune stands as a powerful beacon on the path to heaven.
For there are no small or large lapses where fidelity to divine truth is concerned , according to Saint Basil. Apparently the question is one of direction rather than weights and measures. And there is nothing like a prominent landmark for maintaining one’s sense of direction.
Could this by why God chose the highest peak of the Sinai range as monument to the Holy Martyr Catherine the Great, whose trust in His love sheds the Light of His Truth upon all generations?
“He who covers Himself with light as with a garment has granted for our sakes to become as we are. Today He is covered by the streams of the Jordan, though He has no need to be cleansed by them: But through the cleansing that He Himself receives -- wonder -- He bestows regeneration on us! He refashions without shattering, and without fire, He casts anew, and He saves those who are enlightened in Him …”
Byzantine illustrations from the “Homilies of Saint Gregory the Theologian,” Sinai Codex 339.