Sunday Before Theophany

January 5th, 2003

 

Remember Your Baptism!

 

            In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, one God. Amen.  What a shocking event is taking place.  The hand of St. John the Baptism trembles!  It is all wrong!  The Sinless One is approaching a sinner for baptism.  In the midst of the innumerable crowds confessing their sins and wrenching their hearts in repentance comes the Lord Jesus Christ.  The Forerunner is breathless.  He asks, “Why do you come to me when I have need to be baptize by you?”  Our Savior stops his protesting.  Acknowleding that this is all wrong, He says, “It is fitting to fulfill all righteousness!  Baptize me!” 

            Why did He do it?  He did it to identify with sinners.  He did it to open for us the gates of Paradise.  He did it to institute Christian baptism, calling down upon Himself the Holy Spirit, and sanctifying the waters.  Never would the world be the same.  The waters of the Jordan have been sanctified.  The fount of Christian baptism has been established.  A portal to the Kingdom of God has been established on the earth. 

            Now listen to the testimony of Holy Scripture.  “Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to all the nations.  Whoever believes and is baptized will be saved” (St. Mark 16: 16).  “Unless you are born of water and the spirit you cannot enter into the Kingdom of Heaven” (St. John 3:3, 5).  “Baptism now saves you” (1 Peter 3:21).  “As many as have been baptized into Christ have put on Christ” (Gal. 3:27).  “All of us who have been baptized into Christ Jesus have been baptized into His death?  Therefore we have been buried with Him through baptism into death, in order that as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we too might walk in newness of life” (Rom. 6:3-4). How is this baptismal miracle possible?  By the miracle of our Savior’s baptism in the Jordan, and the descent of the Holy Spirit upon Christ in the waters. 

            How easy it is for each of us to forget what has happened to us! Just as it is very beneficial for married couples during their married life to attend the Holy Sacrament of Matrimony in the Church because to participate in the mystery of the union of two other human beings refreshes their own marital covenant.  They remember what they are, what has happened to them, the sacredness before God and men of the union.  It is the same with Holy Baptism!  When we witness the godparents renouncing Satan, denying him any ground whatsoever, and even spitting in his face as an act of defiance and war we remember what life is about.  There is no playing with evil.  The demons despise us and want us dead.  The passions they inflame are the instruments of their murderous plots.  We have pledged ourselves to fight them, to reject them, to crush them under our feet. 

            We also witness the pledge of the godparents to acknowledge and treasure their union with Jesus Christ.  The priest asks over and over again: “Have you united yourself unto Christ?” and they answer “I have!”   We remember that our life is all about being and staying united to our Lord Jesus Christ.  Abiding in Him as branches in the vine. 

            Treasure your baptism dear ones.  It is everything you need.  “Everyone baptized in the Orthodox manner has received mystically the fullness of grace; but he becomes conscious of this grace only to the extent that he actively observes the commandments” (St. Mark the Ascetic, PHILOKALIA).  When we are baptized it is though the lineaments of the soul are redrawn correctly.  The image of God is restored to its original condition.  But the colors are not painted in between the lines.  That takes place as we conform following baptism to the life of Christ- then we gain the likeness of God and flower with all virtues.  We are transformed from glory to glory.  (St. Diadochos of Photiki, PHILOKALIA).  Before our baptisms grace was outside encouraging the soul to good, but the evil demon was on the inside trying to block the rays of the spiritual sun.  In the catharsis of Holy Baptism the evil one is cast out and grace comes within. 

 

            Know for certain that to despise your baptism, even to forget it is to render it null and void.  “If after we have been baptized we gravitate towards evil and foul actions, we lose the sanctification of baptism completely” (St. Symeon the New Theologian, PHILOKALIA).  At the same time that sanctification is lost the presence of God never completely leaves the baptized person.   “At present, before the day of judgment comes, even though the Spirit cannot dwell within those who are unworthy, He nevertheless is present in a limited way with those who have been baptized, hoping that their conversion will result in salvation (St. Basil the Great, ON THE HOLY SPIRIT, p. 67).