Jesus as our Epiphany: A Meditation on Matthew 3, for the first Sunday in Epiphany

Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan

unto John, to be baptized of him.

But John forbad him, saying,

I have need to be baptized of thee,

 and comest thou to me?

And Jesus answering said unto him,

Suffer it to be so now:

for thus it becometh us to fulfil all righteousness.

Then he suffered him.

 

And Jesus, when he was baptized,

 went up straightway out of the water:

and, lo, the heavens were opened unto him,

and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove,

and lighting upon him:

 And lo a voice from heaven, saying,

This is my beloved Son,

in whom I am well pleased.

 

An epiphany, even in modern usage, often refers to a moment or event of great enlightenment, where ignorance is lifted and replaced with deeper knowledge and wisdom.  In the classical sense it also includes the notion of revelation, particularly the revelation associated with God making Himself known to men.  The Gospel text in Matthew 3 reflects these nuances of an epiphany, where John the Baptist, his disciples, and the multitudes are enlightened by the immediate revelation of God With Us in Jesus Christ.  As the Gospel writers make clear, John the Baptist knew that Jesus was more holy than himself and that He was the Lamb of God who came to take away the sins of the world, but he did not seem to fully understand Jesus’ divinity and unity with the Father and the Holy Spirit until the baptismal vision took place.  As the skies opened, the Holy Spirit descended like a dove, and the Father’s voice rang out in declaration of Jesus as His beloved Son, mankind was made witness to the Trinitarian Mystery of One God in Three Persons.  In this sense, the revelation of Jesus Christ as fully God and fully man, discernable and yet indivisible from God the Father and God the Spirit may have been the greatest enlightenment of men since the Creation itself.

 

This also helps us to debunk an ancient yet recurring heresy, that this baptismal revelation was enlightening Jesus rather than mankind.  The old heresy turns on the idea that Jesus was just a great guy who God decided to adopt, anoint, or somehow ordain on this particular day.  The heresy denies Jesus’ full divinity, and in turn, tries to ascribe some power of men to ascend into divinity or at least into divine favor.  The text makes clear, however, that Jesus was fully aware of who He was and what His purpose in coming would be, so that He could counsel John the Baptist on the necessity of baptism and the fulfilling of all righteousness.  This self-awareness continued throughout Jesus’ life, travels, teaching, and prophecy, as He called His disciples, preached faith and repentance, cured the sick, raised the dead, suffered and died on Calvary, rose again the third day, and ascended back into heaven before sending the Holy Spirit to anoint His Apostles on Pentecost.  Jesus was not enlightened at His baptism—rather, it was Jesus who was enlightening us about who He is, what He came to do, and how we might have eternal life in His Name.

 

St. Paul would write about this enlightenment in Romans 6, where he reflected on what it meant for Christians to be baptized into Jesus.  Just as Jesus was and is very real, having lived a very real life, suffered a very real death, and rose again in a very real resurrection, our baptism unites us to Him in a very real way.  Jesus is not a theological or intellectual symbol, but a living and saving reality.  Our baptism is made as real as the One into whom we are baptized, by the power of the One who established it by His Word and work.  When Paul says we are baptized into the death of Jesus, that’s not figurative language—we are really and fully grafted into Jesus as He suffered and died upon that Roman Cross, making His death ours.  And when Paul says that through our baptism we are raised with Jesus, it is His actual resurrection from the dead, emerging from that Easter tomb, that is now become ours.  Our baptism is not a symbol or work of men, but God Himself working in and through us by the power of His Word and Spirit to unite us to Jesus by grace through faith.  It is Jesus who makes our baptism effectual, just as He established it in Himself with John the Baptist, and gave it as His command after His resurrection, together with teaching His Word for the making of new disciples.  Holy Baptism is a reality as certain as Jesus Himself, not just an ecclesiastical ceremony or work of men.

 

And as Paul notes, knowledge of this reality, this epiphany, should have real impacts on our very real lives.  If we are dead in Jesus as He was sacrificed for the sins of the whole world, then we are no longer to let sin reign in our mortal bodies.  It is Jesus who paid for our sins with His own blood, and we dare not live out our lives in willful re-submission to the evil He died to save us from.  Likewise, if we are risen in Jesus, we should live in Him and the inspiration of His Word and Spirit, just as He lives.  As Jesus is by His divine nature the only and eternally begotten Son of the Father, so He is by His human nature our elder brother and first fruits of the resurrection that we too shall experience in our own bodies.  That resurrection is made present to us through our baptism, just as the atonement for our sins through His death is made present by our baptism.  The totality of our lives now change by virtue of who Jesus has made us to be through His Word and Spirit, united to Himself, now and forevermore.  Through our baptism, He has made us dead to sin and alive unto righteousness, so that we no more live under the fear of the Law but under the joy of the Gospel.  We are new creations, created for good works in Jesus Christ, sustained in Him just as we begun, by grace through faith in Him alone.

 

Behold the Light of the World who pierces all darkness, who alleviates all ignorance, and who bestows all divine wisdom, so that all might live through Him!  Remember the good work Jesus has begun in you, that you might resist the evil which wars against your mind to bring you back into its slavery unto death.  Remember the promise of Jesus that everyone who believes, repents, and is baptized shall be saved.  Remember that He has given to you the power of His Word and Spirit, that you might live each day so enlightened and empowered that your life will be His, and His life will be yours.  Remember to whom you belong, and the life into which you are grafted, that by grace through faith you might live in Him forevermore.  Soli Deo Gloria!  Amen.