Before we get to the subject of the day: In this war of Russian aggression, endorsed by the Orthodox Patriarch of Moscow and All Russia, Ukraine is now being attacked by super-sonic missiles. This is American composer Samuel Barber’s Agnus Dei, sung by the Slovenian Philharmonic Choir.
The Theophany of Our Lord God and Savior Jesus Christ
Last year I complained that the enormously important account of Christ’s great Temptations in the Wilderness * is never read on Sunday, despite the fact that it took place immediately after His Baptism. Instead it’s read at weekday Matins – this year today, Saturday January 10th. I hope you keep up with the Church’s daily Lectionary.
- Because these are our great temptations, as well
Now I’d like to continue my Theophany complaining, this time about the Great Blessing of the Waters. Not about this profound and gorgeous service itself – written by Saint Basil the Great, my patron. My complaint is with whoever (I hope it wasn’t Saint Basil) placed this Blessing at the end of an already-long Liturgy – when people, including the clergy, are getting weary, thinking are we never going to get out of here?
Or is it our fault? I’m sure ancient people in general (and, I know, even people fifty years ago) had more patience and a much longer attention span than we do.
But this is now, not then. I wish somehow the Blessing could be placed at some point when people are able to take it in.
To make it worse, the feast of the Theophany is almost ignored today. In the early Church in the East, Theophany was the great Feast of Christ’s Incarnation and Appearance – the Feast of Lights, when candles were blessed and lighted, and churches were aglow in festivity. Christmas was a later addition. If we look at the liturgical texts, Theophany is still intended to be a slightly greater celebration than Christmas, the culmination of the Feast of Christ’s Nativity.
Greater than Christmas? To put it crudely: “Now, tell me another one.” How many come to celebrate Theophany? For it follows Advent (which is almost “Christmas” in our culture), then the real Christmas and the New Year festivities and the forty, count them, forty football bowl games. (Back in the old days, there were four.) And with that, people are all “celebrated out”. So the feast of The Theophany hits and – well, I won’t tell you how many/how few showed up for the services at Saint Nicholas, Cedarburg, this year. God bless those who did! – but what a shame.
Therefore, what I want to do first today is print part of the text of the Great Blessing of Water, so we can absorb it. Then we can talk a little about it.
The Great Blessing of Water (partial text)
In the preceding feast, we have seen You as a child, and in this present feast we see You as a perfect Man, O our perfect God, appearing out of Perfection: for today we have attained the time of feasting, and the ranks of saints have joined us, and the angels celebrate together with men; today the grace of the Holy Spirit, in the form of a dove, comes down upon the waters.
Today there shines the Sun that never sets, and the world is sparkling with the light of the Lord.
Today the moon shines upon the world with the brightness of its rays.
Today the glittering stars adorn the universe with the radiance of their twinkling.
Today the clouds from heaven shed upon man a shower of justice.
Today the Uncreated One willingly permits the hands of his creature to be laid upon Him.
Today the Prophet and Forerunner comes close to the Master, and he stands in awe, a witness of the condescension of God towards us.
Today through the presence of the Lord the waters of the Jordan River are changed into healing remedies.
Today the whole universe is refreshed with mystical streams.
Today the sins of mankind are blotted out by the waters of the Jordan River.
Today paradise has been opened to mankind, and the Sun of righteousness has shone upon us; today the bitter water, as once with Moses and the people of Israel, is changed into sweetness by the presence of the Lord.
Today we are delivered from the ancient mourning, and, like a new Israel, we are saved.
Today we escape from darkness and, through the light of the knowledge of God, we are illumined.
Today the darkness of the world vanishes with the appearing of our God.
Today the whole creation is brightened from on high.
Today errors are canceled, and a way of salvation is prepared for us by the coming of the Lord.
Today the heavenly dwellers rejoice with those of the earth, and the dwellers of the earth with those of heaven.
Today the noble and eloquent assembly rejoices, the assembly of those of the true faith.
Today the Lord comes to be baptized, so that mankind may be lifted up.
Today the One who never has to bow inclines Himself before his servant so that He may set us free from bondage; today we have acquired the kingdom of heaven: for the Lord’s kingdom shall have no end.
Today the land and the sea divide between them the joy of the world, and the world is filled with gladness. The waters saw You, O God, the waters saw You and were afraid; the Jordan River turns back its course as it beholds the fire of the Godhead coming down upon it and entering it in the flesh; the Jordan River turns back its course as it beholds the Holy Spirit descending in the form f a dove, and hovering above it; the Jordan River turns back its course as it beholds the Invisible made visible, the Creator existing in the flesh, and the Master in the form of a servant; the Jordan River turns back its course, and the mountains shout with joy as they behold God in the flesh. And the clouds give voice, and are filled with awe by the One who is coming, Light of light, true God of true God; for today in the Jordan River they saw the triumph of the Master; they saw Him drown in the Jordan River the death of sin, the thorn of error, and the bond of Hades, and bestow upon the world the baptism of salvation. So also am I, your unworthy and sinful servant, encompassed by fear as I proclaim your great wonders; and I cry out reverently to You, and say:
The priest then says in a louder voice:
GREAT ARE YOU, O LORD, AND MARVELOUS ARE YOUR WORKS, AND NO WORDS ARE SUFFICIENT TO PRAISE YOUR WONDERS (3X).
For by Your divine will You brought forth all things out of nothing into being; by Your might You control all creation; by Your providence You govern the universe, O You who made the whole world out of four elements and crowned the cycle of the year with four seasons.
The bodiless powers tremble before You; the sun praises You; the moon glorifies You; the stars bless You; the light obeys You; the tempests tremble, and the springs adore You. You have spread out the heavens like a tent-cloth; You fixed the earth upon the waters; You have walled about the sea with sand; You let the air flow about for our breathing.
The angelic powers minister to You; the ranks of archangels worship You; the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, standing around You and flying about You, hide their faces in fear of your unapproachable glory. And You, O God, while remaining boundless, without beginning, and beyond all words deigned to come down upon earth, to assume the likeness of a servant, and to become like man. Because of your compassionate mercy, O Master, You were unable to endure and to behold the race of mankind under the tyranny of the devil. Consequently, You have come to save us.
We acknowledge Your grace. We proclaim Your mercy, and we do not conceal Your gracious acts. You have set mankind free; by your birth You have sanctified the Virgin’s womb; and since Your manifestation all creation praises You. For You, O our God, have appeared on earth and have dwelt among men. You sanctified the waters of the Jordan by sending down Your Holy Spirit from heaven, and You have crushed the heads of the dragons who lurk there.
Later, at the conclusion, the Priest immerses the Precious Cross up and down in the holy water, holding it straight, and recites the Troparion/Apolytikion of the Theophany:
by Nicholas Baba (from Orthodox Christian Chants)
“Today…!” “Today…!” “Today!”
This is not a celebration of what happened 2000 years ago. On Theophany we celebrate what is happening now. Today Christ is being baptized in the Jordan. Today the world is being redeemed. The word today is repeated over and over again.
What the Church always celebrates is what is happening now.
In each celebration of the Holy Eucharist, Jesus Christ is made present among us. We “do this for the remembrance“of Him. The New Testament Greek word is “ἀνάμνησις / anamnesis”. It means more than just thinking about Him. It means literally to re-call Jesus Christ, call Him again to be present in this Holy Mystery, so we can receive Him into ourselves, to strengthen us in our life in Him.
Likewise on each Feast Day we are lifted out of our time and place and made present at the Annunciation to the Virgin Mary, at His Birth, His Baptism, His Transfiguration. We don’t just think about these wonderful, life-creating events; we participate in them. When you come to celebrate the Great Feasts, approach them that way, and see if they don’t come alive to you. *
- Take a slight analogy: An old television program, “You Are There”, covered events of American history “live”, so to speak. And the events came alive to us as we watched.
What happens “live” at Christ’s Baptism is that today all of God’s Creation celebrates the wonder of the Son of God daring to become a Human Being to save suffering mankind.
Had we but eyes to see them, today, now, as He is baptized, all Creation worships Him. “The angelic powers minister to You; the ranks of archangels worship You; the many-eyed Cherubim and the six-winged Seraphim, standing around You and flying about You, hide their faces in fear of your unapproachable glory,
Praise is given Christ our God from “beings” that we don’t think of as beings. The bodiless powers tremble before You; the sun praises You; the moon glorifies You; the stars bless You; the light obeys You; the tempests tremble, and the springs adore You.
Brothers and sisters, there is more going on in this world than we can perceive, more that scientists can discover. All Good Things are in a continual act of worship, obeying God, serving God, glorifying God. Look all around and try to imagine it.
Dragons in the Waters
“’You established the sea by Your might. You broke the heads of the dragons in the waters.” Psalm 73:14
As we know, there are also bad things in this world, good things twisted out of shape, forces of evil.
By His immersion in the Jordan River, Jesus Christ blessed the waters, symbolically rescuing the waters of the Jordan from the “dragons therein”, rescuing the world and us from the evils herein.
Water is the source of all life. 50 to 75 percent of the human body is composed of water. About 75 percebt of the human brain consists of water. * The desert cactus is more than 85 percent water. Water is life.
- Some peoples’ brains appear to have a much higher percentage of water, if you know what I mean.
By entering into the water, Christ our God sanctifies it, makes all life holy, all of nature holy. This process has continued in the Orthodox Church ever since. You know what a vast amount of water is blessed in a typical Orthodox Church during a year: first a small font at Theophany for the blessing of homes, then a large font for every Baptism, all of which goes not into the sewer but directly into the ground, into the natural water table. Multiply that by about 300 million Orthodox churches in the world.
Add to that the lesser Blessing of the Waters, when many churches bless nearby lakes and rivers and streams. Here at Saint Nicholas, people go over to bless the waters of Cedar Creek. Then our local clergy association sponsors an annual Blessing of the Waters of Lake Michigan. You can see how much water that is! From the middle of the Lake, a person cannot see land in any direction.
The water then flows out through Lake Huron into Lake Erie, over Niagara Falls into Lake Ontario, then through the Saint Lawrence River into the Atlantic Ocean, and after that only God knows where.
Beginning with Christ’s Blessing of the Jordan till this present day, would you like to guess how much holy water there is in this world? how many molecules of holy water? Holy water comes out of our faucets. We bathe and shower in holy water.
Wonderful! But it means little unless it causes us to treat all water, all life, all the natural order with reverence.
Today there are other kinds of dragons in the waters, The waters of the Jordan 2000 years ago were then flowing wide and deep and clean. Today?
Which brings us to our final subject:
Protecting the God-given environment.
If you look at pictures of Cedarburg, you can see picturesque Cedar Creek flowing past the old mill.
Well, despite the fact that Saint Nicholas Church has blessed Cedar Creek for nearly thirty years now, it recently cost at least $23 million to clean that picturesque creek.
The national Environmental Protection Agency sued the company which was responsible for the pollution and won, and the cleanup was completed several years ago. However, after all that, it’s still not safe to swim or eat fish caught in Cedar Creek. This is just one small creek in one small corner of Wisconsin.
“About half of the U.S.’s assessed rivers, lakes, and streams are heavily polluted, with over 700,000 miles of rivers and streams and 11 million acres of lakes designated as ‘impaired’, i.e unsafe for swimming, fishing, or drinking.” (This is from a 2022 report by the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP), which says that this is likely an underestimate.)
New rules essentially “imposed” on the EPA are “significantly curbing the EPA’s ability to limit nearly 200 pollutants from thousands of industrial plants.” ProPublica, January 6, 2026
Environmentalism once was non-partisan. A Republican President, Richard Nixon, initiated the Environmental Protection Agency. Explain it as you will, here we are in 2026, and much good that has been accomplished over the last decades is now controversial and is being dismantled, step by step,
Brothers and sisters, this is not our world to dishevel. It’s God’s world.
You know that His Holiness Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew is nicknamed the “Green Patriarch”. Environmental protection, to him, is a theological and moral issue:
“We believe that the roots of the environmental crisis are not primarily economic or political, nor technological, but profoundly and essentially religious, spiritual and moral. This is because it is a crisis about and within the human heart….This world is not just a gift from God; it is a challenge for humanity. We have at last come to learn the truth that we have mistreated the natural environment and its resources. The consequences are plain and painful. They are evident in the air that we breathe, the water that we drink, the food that we consume, the emotional and physical problems that we face in our health, but also in our relationships with each other on the local, regional, national and global levels.” Orthodox Times, June 5, 2021
I found a statement from our American Orthodox bishops about the environmental crisis, endorsing the work of Patriarch Bartholomew, written in 2005. I hope they have spoken since. Perhaps I missed it.
How much of this concern has made it down to the local parish level I don’t know. It should, because as Orthodox Christians, we believe not only in the salvation of the soul, but the Resurrection of the body. God created the entire material world and called it good, and in the New Age, all good things are to be redeemed, untwisted and restored.
“For the earnest expectation of the creation eagerly waits for the revealing of the sons of God. For the creation was subjected to futility, not willingly, but because of Him who subjected it in hope; because the creation itself also will be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groans and labors with birth pangs together until now.” Romans 8:19-22
Next Week: tentatively Saint Anthony the Great
Week after Next: tentatively The Festival of Learning