32nd Sunday after Pentecost: Sunday before the Holy Theophany of Our Lord Jesus Christ.

A reading from the Holy Gospel according to the Apostle and Evangelist Saint Mark (Mk 1:1–8).

“The beginning of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. As it is written in the prophet Isaiah:

‘Behold, I send My messenger before Your face,

who will prepare Your way before You.’

‘The voice of one crying in the wilderness:

Prepare the way of the Lord,

make His paths straight.’

John appeared, baptizing in the wilderness and preaching a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And all the region of Judea and all the people of Jerusalem went out to him, and they were baptized by him in the Jordan River, confessing their sins.

Now John was clothed with camel’s hair and wore a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. And he preached, saying: ‘After me comes One who is mightier than I, whose sandal strap I am not worthy to stoop down and loose. I indeed baptized you with water, but He will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.’

Homily

Dear brothers and sisters in the Lord,

the Word of God which the Church offers us today leads us, as by the hand, toward the great and radiant feast that we shall celebrate tomorrow: the Holy and Great Theophany of the Lord, according to the Julian calendar. Nothing in the readings we have heard is accidental. Everything works together to reveal to us a God who does not remain distant, but who enters into history, into matter, and into the concrete life of humanity in order to sanctify and transfigure them.

The Apostle Paul, in his Second Letter to Timothy, speaks with the serenity of one who has entrusted his entire life to the Gospel. He does not claim achievements, he does not list works, but simply declares: “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith” (2 Tim 4:7).

Saint John Chrysostom observes that Paul “does not glory in what he has done, but in what he has never lost: fidelity to the gift he received” (Homilies on Second Timothy, Homily IX). This is the image of a life not possessed by itself, but inhabited by Christ.

In the Gospel according to Mark we encounter John the Baptist, “the voice of one crying in the wilderness” (Mk 1:3; cf. Is 40:3). He keeps nothing for himself, he does not appropriate the expectation of the people, but points to the One who is coming. John knows that he is a voice and not the Word, a sign and not the fulfillment. Saint Cyril of Jerusalem affirms: “The voice prepares the ear, but it is the Word that enters the heart and remains there” (Catecheses, III, 6).

The Baptist teaches us that making room for Christ means learning how to step aside.

Christ approaches the waters of the Jordan not because He is in need of purification, but in order to transform whatever He touches. Here an important distinction must be made. Epiphany, in a broad sense, indicates the manifestation of God; Theophany, instead, indicates the manifestation of God as Trinity. In the Holy Theophany we do not celebrate merely the fact that Christ becomes visible, but that the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit are revealed together: “He saw the Spirit descending upon Him… and a voice came from heaven” (Mk 1:10–11).

It is precisely in this revelation that we understand the true meaning of the event. The Holy Theophany is not the celebration of Christ’s baptism as if He were a penitent, but the manifestation of the Trinity and, above all, the sanctification of the waters and of the whole creation. Saint John Chrysostom proclaims this clearly: “It was not Christ who had need of the Jordan, but the Jordan that had need of Christ” (Homily on the Baptism of Christ, PG 49, 363).

The Psalms help us to understand that this sanctification is not a later idea, but a reality announced already in the ancient covenant:

“The sea saw it and fled; the Jordan turned back” (Ps 113[114]:3);

“The waters saw You, O God; the waters saw You and were afraid” (Ps 76[77]:17);

“The voice of the Lord is over the waters” (Ps 28[29]:3).

Creation recognizes its Creator and reacts to His presence.

This mystery does not remain confined to the Jordan of two thousand years ago. What Christ accomplished once and for all, He makes accessible in the life of the Church, and in a particular way in Holy Baptism. Allow me now a personal word, not to speak about myself, but to bear witness to the work of God.

When I received Baptism in the Orthodox faith, I understood inwardly that it was not I who was approaching Christ, but Christ who was approaching the waters of my life. I felt like the Jordan itself: a river marked by fragility, wounds, and contradictions, yet visited by the Lord. It was not I who purified myself, but Christ who descended into the troubled waters of my history in order to sanctify them. Just as the Jordan stops its course and turns back before its Creator (cf. Ps 113[114]:3), so too the course of my life was interrupted and reoriented toward God. On that day I understood that Baptism is not the sign of human perfection, but the beginning of God’s mercy: not humanity ascending to heaven, but heaven opening itself over humanity (cf. Mk 1:10).

Saint Gregory the Theologian says: “Christ is illumined; let us be illumined with Him. Christ is baptized; let us go down with Him, that we may also rise with Him” (Oration XXXIX, On the Holy Lights, 14). And it is precisely here that a question arises which today we cannot avoid. In a world wounded by wars, in a time when entire peoples live under bombardment, when hatred divides nations and fear hardens hearts, how can we make room for Christ?

Once again, the answer comes to us from the Jordan. The river does not perform heroic deeds; it simply stops. It halts its course to allow the Lord to pass. So too we are not called first of all to save the world by force, but to stop the flow of hatred that runs through our hearts, to interrupt the logic of violence that often, silently, dwells even within us.

Wars are born not only in the strategies of the powerful, but in hearts that no longer make room for God. Saint Basil the Great teaches that outward war is the reflection of an inward war (Homily on Psalm 33). Where a person is not reconciled with God, he will hardly be reconciled with his brother.

Christ does not enter the Jordan as a conqueror, but as a servant who humbles Himself. In a world that believes in force, God responds with humility. In a world that cries out for vengeance, God responds with the silence of sanctified waters. To make room for Christ today means to imitate this self-emptying, to choose not to answer hatred with hatred, nor violence with violence.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus reminds us that God does not save by coercion, but by light (Oration XXXIX, 3). The Theophany does not kindle the fire of destruction, but the light that heals. This is the light the world awaits, even when it does not know how to name it.

Christ enters the waters just as He will enter death, in order to conquer it from within. For this reason, the Theophany already contains within itself the mystery of the Cross and the Resurrection and announces the final transfiguration of the world. To make room for Christ means to allow Him to enter the troubled waters of history, beginning with the waters of our own hearts.

Thus, as we prepare to celebrate the Holy Theophany, we are called to keep the faith like Paul, to prepare the way with humility like John the Baptist, and to allow ourselves to be sanctified like the Jordan.

To Him be glory, honor, and worship, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, now and ever and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

Archpriest Michele Alberto Del Duca.