In the Name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.

When we are celebrating today the Theophany of our Saviour, this is not a simple feast, a simple celebration just of the Baptism of Christ. True, it is the Baptism of Christ, and it is extremely important, but at the same time as we are celebrating the Baptism of Christ, we are celebrating also the revelation of the Holy Trinity. This is the first of our experiences of the Holy Trinity, because as we are singing in the tropar: The voice of the Father calls Jesus His beloved Son, and the Spirit, in the form of a dove…. You see, this is a very important moment for us. We have the Holy Trinity, in the form of the Three Persons, revealed to us. In the tropar it is not just the fact that Jesus Christ is truly the beloved Son of God that is expressed, but we are exposed to the whole Trinity. God's love for us, His patience with us, and His care for us are completely beyond my comprehension.

We, who are Orthodox Christians, have to remember this particular detail: that God is revealing Himself to us. We live in a society that is enslaved to logic, and to all sorts of visible data, somehow – so-called "science". It’s not really science; it’s pretending to be science. If it were truly science, it would recognise God, and everything else would fall into place. However, what we are calling “science” is godless, and therefore, it is just a fake. There is some truth, but who can believe exactly what are their conclusions when their conclusions are without God. We are always in our society demanding some sort of particular proof, and we want to have some sort of proof of God. As the Soviet Nikita Khrushchev said, when the first satellites were flying above the earth: They didn’t report seeing God up there.

When we are singing: “The Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us” (as we are singing on this feast, and other feasts also, but particularly this feast), we are, in fact, proclaiming what is the foundation of our experience. God is the Lord – the Lord is God; He has revealed Himself to us. He, in His love, shows Himself to us WHO HE IS. Who is He? The Apostle says that God is simply love. Love. On that foundation, all of creation exists. It doesn’t exist because of a series of silly accidents: lightning striking some pond sometime, or a million more “accidents”. No. Where does this lightning come from anyway? No scientist can say that. Where does anything come from? No scientist can say that. God is the Lord – the Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us. The Lord, who is love, out of His love creates everything, and everything that is, exists by His love. It does not exist separate from His love – He is also in everything that He creates. The Grace of the Holy Spirit sustains everything that exists.

The Lord is in everything. He is with us, also. He is renewing everything that He created, and He is renewing us also. This is the expression of His love. When we have our sorrows, our pains, and our illnesses, we turn to Him, and He consoles us. Sometimes we get physical healing; always we get some sort of spiritual healing because the Lord, in His love, cares for us. He is with us.

It was not long ago (because I am involved in dialogues) that I was having to read a book about the Eucharist by the current Pope. The title of this book is: God is near us. Here the Pope is showing where he is off track because God is not near us. He is with us, in us – that’s the whole point. (I’m sad that the Pope lost the point. However, if we are having conversations with him, eventually maybe he, and his successors will get the point.) What is always important for you, and for me to remember is that we, who know the Lord, because He has revealed Himself to us, have also the responsibility to show God, who revealed Himself to us, and reveals Himself to us, to people around us. If we are Orthodox Christians, and we believe truly that the Lord is God, and has revealed Himself to us, it is important that we live this love (which is God’s love), share it with people around us, and reveal Christ in us, and allow Christ to reveal Himself through us to other people who are without Him.

Another important point today for us is about this water. Today we are going to be blessing this water, by the Grace of God. We are asking God to bless this water with the blessing of the Jordan River. In the same way as Christ descends into the waters today, and is baptised, and blesses the waters of the Jordan, and through the waters of the Jordan the whole earth, so we are renewing that blessing, and extending that blessing by placing His holy Cross in the water. By the Grace of the Holy Spirit, this water takes on, by His mercy, the character of His love.

Here is an interesting twist about “science”. In Japan, there was a scientist (maybe some of you have read this book already) who decided he was going to study the character of water at the point of freezing, and watch the crystallisation of water, and its characteristics. He did this by studying different sorts of water. He studied tap water, lake water, water that is polluted, water that is around pleasant circumstances, water that is around rock music, water that is around Mozart, water that has people saying to it: I love you, water that has people saying to it: I hate you. He studied the nature of the crystals under all these circumstances, and he found that the crystallisation of the water was very different according to the circumstances. Under positive circumstances, the crystals are very clear and normal. When water is under generally good circumstances, things are regular. When water is around Mozart, or words of love, encouragement, hope, peace, and so forth, the crystals are particularly nice-looking. When the water is polluted, you can hardly recognise a crystal at all – it’s all completely distorted. The same thing happens around negative emotions like hate, anger, and certain sorts of rock music (because certain sorts of rock music are characterised exactly by anger, and even hatred). It was an interesting book to read although I didn’t understand it, of course, because I have too little Russian.

Then there was a study done in Russia by Russian scientists who decided to take this farther, and they made a DVD of the results of this. They repeated the studies of the Japanese scientists, and then they added on their own more elaborate studies of the characteristics of water. They showed what holy water looks like, water that has been blessed in the Orthodox Church. This water is, apparently, really extraordinary – extraordinarily beautiful. They did further studies, and they discovered that water that is in this good condition heals water that is in a bad condition. One small part of blessed water or healthy water will heal corrupted water at least sixty, if not six hundred times as much. That much. That is the strength of the influence of this holy water, this blessed water, this healthy water on corrupted water. When we Orthodox Christians have been for two thousand years blessing water, we have science, this time “godly science” on our side in a sort of a way to support what we are doing. It’s not just some sort of nice thing. To drink holy water is not just some sort of thing you have to do because you are an Orthodox Christian. It turns out that it’s good for you, and the scientists have confirmed that it’s good for you. It’s not just good for us – it’s good for all of God’s creation.

This water, this healthy, holy water, that is healing all the corrupted water around it, is also a sign for you, and for me, Orthodox Christians, who live in the context of this blessing. Our bodies are made up of so much water. If the Lord is blessing us in this way, the water that is constituting our bodies has to have a similar quality. Our life must have a similar quality. It’s our responsibility to bring Christ’s healing to people around us, and to the earth around us on which we live. This is our responsibility. This is all part of God revealing Himself to us. The Lord is God. God is love. His love is with us. His love transforms this water, and transforms us. His love transforms everything. Nevertheless, we must co-operate. And so today, as we are receiving the precious Body, and Blood of our Saviour, and also, this holy water, let us ask the Lord to heal our hearts, our bodies, our lives. Let us ask Him to enable us, also, to bring with us wherever we are, this healing, transfiguring, transforming love, bringing health to human relationships, health to people who are broken, and allow the Lord to change things through us, and, doing this, glorify Him, our Saviour, Jesus Christ, together with His Father, who is from everlasting, and His all-holy, good, and life-giving Spirit, now, and ever, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

† Archdiocese of Canada - Orthodox Church in America