Dear Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

Congratulations with the great feast of the Baptism of the Lord!

If two weeks ago we celebrated the unheard of wonder that the Lord God humbled Himself and became the most real person so as to join together heaven and earth, then today we mark something even more magnificent.

Not long before the beginning of the ministry of Jesus Christ, the prediction of the Holy Prophet of God Malachi that God “will send [His] messenger, and he shall prepare the way before me” (Mal. 3: 1) was fulfilled, for unexpectedly St. John the Baptist began to preach: “Repent ye: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Mat. 3: 2). The words of this ascetic were of such strength that “Jerusalem, and all Judaea, and all the region round about Jordan, [went out to him] and were baptized of him in Jordan, confessing their sins” (Mat. 3: 5-6).

The sinless, innocent, most-pure Jesus Christ Himself also came to John to be baptized by him. Of course, this was not done so that He would be cleansed from His sins, for He had none, but to wash away the sins of the entire race of mankind, from the first man, Adam, until the very last person. When our Lord Jesus Christ came from Galilee to the Jordan, it is as if He were saying to each of us: Pass on to Me all of your sins. Place them all, from the most minuscule to the grossest, onto Me, and I, with My divine might, will carry them to the river Jordan, where I will wash them from Myself and drown them in the deep!

Today let’s throw off of ourselves through repentance our sins and place them on the Saviour so that He may wash them away. In this way let’s come to know that spiritual lightness that is granted to us today. Having been freed from the spiritual weight of our sins, and having acquired an emancipated conscience let’s hurry into the Kingdom of Heaven.

priest Alexis