Theophany

Date: 06 January 2006 20:35:18

Icon from my sponsor and his fiancée

Image from Pisa Baptistry, Nicola Pisano (1483-1520)

Yesterday (Friday) was the Feast of Theophany, the manifestation of God to humans.

In the Orthodox church, this is celebrated by Christ's Baptism, one of the Twelve Great Feasts of the church. In the "western" churches, this is celebrated as Epiphany with the arrival of the Magi being commemorated [the Orthodox remember the Magi at Nativity (Christmas)]. Both show the revelation of Christ as God to the world: Christ's Baptism also shows forth the Trinity, with the Father pronouncing Jesus His Son and the Holy Spirit descending in the form of a dove. [This page, from Wikipedia, describes in brief terms the history of these feasts and of Christmas.]

On Thursday evening we celebrated the Feast with a Divine Liturgy [Eucharist]. Following on from Jewish reckoning, the day in Orthodoxy begins at sunset, hence the ability to celebrate feasts on the evening before -- especially, unfortunately, in this busy, busy world where we can't get time off to celebrate them during the day.

After the Divine Liturgy, there was the Service of the Blessing of the Waters. This Blessing not only recalls Christ's Baptism, but also expresses that all of creation is made holy, sanctified, through Christ. Some of the hymns / prayers from the service:

Today the nature of the water is sanctified and the Jordan bursts forth and turns back the streams of its own waters, seeing the Master being baptized.

When You, O Lord, were baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest. For the voice of the Father bore witness to You, and called You His beloved Son. And the Spirit, in the form of a dove, confirmed the truthfulness of His word. O Christ, our God, Who has revealed Yourself and has enlightened the world, Glory to You!

That this water may become a gift of sanctification, and deliverance of sins, for the healing of soul and body and for every good purpose, let us pray to the Lord.

Let us the faithful praise the greatness of God's dispensation concerning us. For in our transgression He, alone clean and undefiled, becoming man, is cleansed in Jordan, sanctifying me and the waters, and crushing the heads of the dragons on the waters. Let us therefore draw water with gladness, brethren. For the grace of the Spirit is being given invisibly to those who draw with faith by Christ, God and the Saviour of our souls.

The final two prayers above make reference to the fact that after the prayers and hymns for the blessing of the waters, during which the priest plunges a cross into the waters three times (a baptismal font in our parish), the parishioners come forward with bottles (which ranged from plastic water bottles to Bundaberg Rum bottles in our parish!) and fill them with the blessed water which they take home and use throughout the year. In addition, the priest also visits parishioners' homes in the days following to bless them with water.

At the end of the service when we came forward to venerate the icon of the Theophany (and our parish had a new icon on display from our newly donated set), we were also sprinkled with the blessed water. Water features very prominently in Theophany services.

My prayer this Theophany was that I would be washed again, spiritually, in the waters of Baptism and by the grace of God and work of Christ put to death every wrong deed, as through baptism we have died with Christ and have put on Christ (this verse is used as a hymn after Baptism and on certain Feasts Days -- a wonderful reminder of our Baptism and our union with Christ through it).