Let us not forget the role of St. John, who preached repentance, before whom people repented and confessed their sins and were baptised – Fr. Gavril
This is a precious day, a great day for the world and for mankind:- Epiphany. On this day, God manifested (was revealed) Himself to humanity offering peace and deliverance. On this day, the whole creation rejoiced because God renewed the fallen man and the world through the water.
With the Baptism of the Lord in the river Jordan, Mankind is renewed and sanctified. By the entering of Jesus into the waters (river Jordan), they were sanctified and all of nature with them. With the manifestation (expression) of the Father and the descent of the Holy Spirit in the form of a Dove, Heaven opened and the Holy Trinity has revealed to us.
However, let us not forget the role of St. John, who preached repentance, before whom people repented and confessed their sins and were baptised. There is no resurrection, there is no renewal, there is no sanctification (blessing) without our own free will, that is, without collaboration with God. That is an expression of the freedom which God gives us and through which, if we safeguard the pureness of our heart, we will be given even greater freedom in the Kingdom of Heaven.
John tried to prevent Jesus saying: “I need to be baptised by You, and You are coming to me?” (Matthew 3:14). But the Lord Jesus, who came to straighten the path of the fallen Adam (fallen men), showed us how it should be done, that is, through humility to rise, and not to perish by being proud.
He did not need to be baptised, He did it for us. Because He is God – there was no problem for Him to humiliate Himself and come in the form of a man – Also He did not perceive it as a problem to stand in the line with repentant ones, to lower His head and to be submerged by God’s (His) servant in the waters.
Through the sacrament of baptism the doors are open to us, and with an obedient humility we enter into the Kingdom of God. The Kingdom of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit, a Kingdom that has been revealed to us on this day and for which our Saviour Jesus Christ came to be baptised by John (The Baptist) in the river Jordan.
