The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light… . From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, “Repent for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
Christ is baptized! In the Jordan!
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
“But among you there must not be even a hint of sexual immorality, or of any kind of impurity, or of greed, because these are improper for God’s holy people. Nor should there be obscenity, foolish talk or coarse joking, which are out of place, but rather thanksgiving. For of this you can be sure: no immoral, impure or greedy person—such a person is an idolater—has any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. … For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)… . But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes light. This is why it is said:
‘Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you’” (Eph 5:3-5, 8-9, 13-14).
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of the light… . But everything exposed by light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes light.” Brethren, it is the Afterfeast of Theophany. What is a “theophany”? Literally, theophaneia, an “appearance of God.” The Feast is underscored with themes of revelation and enlightenment, as we read in the Synoptic accounts:
“As soon as Jesus was baptized, he went up out of the water. At that moment heaven was opened, and he saw the Spirit of God descending like a dove and alighting on him. And a voice from heaven said, ‘This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased” (Matt 3:16-17).
The revelation of Theophany is the revelation of the Godhead: Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as our hymnody makes clear: “When Thou, O Lord, was baptized in the Jordan, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest,” and the Troparion for the Feast ends thus, “O Christ, our God who hast revealed Thyself and hast enlightened the world—glory to Thee!”
In our Orthodox Tradition, the Feast of Theophany is also, fittingly, referred to as “the Feast of Lights.” Surely, there is some etymological association with the Gospel Reading appointed for the Sunday After:
“… [T]hat it might be fulfilled which was spoken by Isaiah the prophet, saying, ‘The land of Zebulun and the land of Naphtali, … the people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned” (Matt 4:14-15a, 16).
Although, Seberian, Bishop of Gabalon in Syria, writing during the 4th century, comments that in the churches on this specific feast day there was “a great abundance of light” on account of the faithful carrying many lighted candles (cf. Graeca Patrologiae 65.25); hence, the denomination.
Throughout the New Testament—and yes, even throughout much extrabiblical Jewish literature (I am thinking here of the Qumran scrolls and the apocalyptic text: “The War of the Sons of Light against the Sons of Darkness”)—[throughout the New Testament] the association of light with goodness or uprightness and darkness with evil or moral depravity is ubiquitous. From St. John’s First Epistle:
This is the message we have heard from him and declare to you: God is light; in him there is no darkness at all. If we claim to have fellowship with him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not live out the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin” (1 Jn 1:5-7).
And recalling again the words of the Apostle from Ephesians:
“For you were once darkness, but now you are light in the Lord. Live as children of light (for the fruit of the light consists in all goodness, righteousness and truth)” (Eph 5:8-9).
Lastly, from St. John’s Gospel—a passage that many of us would have memorized in children’s Sunday School:
“When Jesus spoke again to the people, he said, ‘I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life’ (John 8:12).
“I am the light of the world,” says our Lord to his disciples. And he says this to us as well: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness… .” During this season of Theophany, during this Afterfeast of the “Feast of Lights,” we are reminded in today’s Gospel: Christ has enlightened the world, yes. And Christ has come to shine a light into dark places (cf. Matt 4:16), specifically, into the darkness of our hearts.
“The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light, and upon those who sat in the region and shadow of death Light has dawned. [hear this now] From that time Jesus began to preach and to say, ‘Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand’” (vv 16-17).
This is how today’s pericope for the Sunday After ends. “It starts out so positively,” we think, “with verbiage of ‘light’ and the hope of prophetic fulfillment,” and then… becomes quite sullen and pensive: “Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
These Gospel pericopes, brethren, are not random groupings of words. They reveal an awareness of the literary and theological thematics of the text. … But we sometimes miss these things. In the light of Theophany, in the light of the Baptism of our Lord, the revelation of the Godhead, the beginning of Christ’s ministry, the inauguration of the Kingdom of God, what is to be our response? Rejoicing? Possibly. Attentiveness? Possibly. Discipleship? Possibly. All these things may be true. But the text makes one thing clear: in response to the revelation of the God-Man Jesus Christ; in response to the advent of the Kingdom: we are to repent. “But everything exposed by the light becomes visible—and everything that is illuminated becomes light,” says the Apostle (Eph 5:13).
The light of Christ illumines our minds. And the light of Christ exposes our depravity. It exposes our filth, our sin, our need for a Savior. Light warms; light guides; and light… exposes. Brethren, have you ever been cleaning a room in the middle of the day, a room perhaps that you usually clean in the early morning or late evening, and you have found: oh my, this room, this floor, this wall, this sink, this shower, this rug—it is so much dirtier than I thought it was! When we sit in this nave, in the dark, ambient candlelight of Vespers, we do not see the dust floating by. Oh yes, we might see some smoke billowing out of the censer (that is hard to miss), but how much more apparent are these things in the morning light of the Divine Liturgy? We see the children dancing in the sunbeams trying to catch the particles of dust. Those particles, brethren, are always there—morning, evening, noonday—but sometimes we cannot see them. It is the same with the “dust” and “dirt” of our lives. It is always there, but sometimes, we might not see it, or worse, we might willfully turn the eyes of our spiritual minds from it.
Our sins are like the stains found in our sinks, the pale fingerprints which litter our walls. In the dark, they are barely noticeable, but in the light… they are unsightly blemishes. They need to be addressed. They need to be scoured. They need to be purged. They need to be swept away, by the exposing and purifying light of Christ.
We do all kinds of things in the darkness that we would never do in the light, for fear of exposure. There is a reason that brothels and pubs do not keep daylight hours. We are presented with a choice daily, brethren: we may walk in the light, or we may walk in darkness. “We grope for the wall like the blind, and we grope as if we had no eyes: we stumble at noon day as in the night; we are in desolate places as dead men,” says the Prophet Isaiah (59:10). There is much pleasure to be found in darkness, but that is all. In darkness, there is self-indulgent pleasure, but there is no goodness; there is no joy. There is no peace; there is no knowledge. “For the wise can see where they are going, but the fool walks in the dark,” writes the Teacher of Ecclesiastes (2:14). Christ came to enlighten us, brethren! But he came to enlighten all of us—every last bit. He came to make us wise, and he came to expose our sins; not to shame us, but to heal us. Our sins cannot be healed if they are not exposed. Our sins cannot be healed if they are not confessed.
The good news of Theophany, brethren, is Christ’s testimony to his disciples in John, chapter 8: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life.” (v. 12). But the imperative of Theophany is repentance.
“You shall judge righteously. You shall not make a schism. You shall pacify those that contend by bringing them together. You shall confess your sins. You shall not go to prayer with an evil conscience. This is the way of light” (Letter of Barnabas 19).
“You shall confess your sins. … This is the way of light.”
Through the prayers of our holy fathers, O Lord, Jesus Christ, our God, have mercy on us and save us. Amen.
Christ is baptized! In the Jordan!