Why is the Epiphany remembered together with the Baptism of the Lord?

As the land waits for Epiphany frosts, a soul waits for the ablution with Baptism. But what do we know about Baptism?

The beauty of the christian faith and the meaning of Baptism can be understood only by those who with their whole heart look for the One God – for the Most Holy Trinity.

As we know, the Holy Trinity is showed in the New Testament for one time— the baptism of Jesus on the Jordan River. Since then, christians have been glorifying the Epiphany together with the Baptism of the Lord.

It can be assumed that these events have become the main gospel stories, in which the meaning of Christ's servicing through the knowledge of the Trinity is hidden.

Having been baptized in the Jordan, Jesus — the God and the perfect Man who had no sin on Himself — shared his fate with sinful humanity.

In the Baptism of the Lord, we are given the greatest revelation of the love of God, who gave His Only-Begotten Son for our salvation and gave the Holy Spirit, giving life.

The Holy Spirit cascades upon Jesus, and the voice from Heaven testifies that He is the Beloved Son of God, in whom the Father'sbenevolence is.

«When the Lord, as a human, is being baptized in the Jordan, we are being washed in Him and by Him, and when He receives the Spirit, we become spirit-receiving through Him,» —  St. Athanasius the Great taught.

A sinful person becomes similar to God! Such a generosity and love from theCreator to his stumbled creation.

The foreshadow of Baptism was the baptism "from Moses in the cloud and in the sea" (1 Corinthians 10:2). Being under a cloud and crossing the sea personified the grace of the spirit and the future baptism in water. The prophet John the Baptist had already baptized with water, in repentance, but this hadn't been a perfect baptism yet. And only Jesus baptized with the Spirit, showing us the way of spiritual perfection.

It is a great honor for every believer to be marked with the seal of the Holy Spirit and to glorify the Most Holy Trinity.

The Reverend Symeon the New Theologian said that the grace of the Holy Spirit made a person a friend and a son of God and a god, as far as it is possible for a person.

The beauty of human's likeness to God is restored only by the Spirit, as the image at baptism is.

Recorded by Natalia Goroshkova