"Foundations of the World"

The Man of Eden has appeared! Who could fail to recognize him? His purity is obvious. He is fragrant of the morning of the earth. He takes no wine or strong drink. He eats only manna — honey cakes called akris (morphing into enkris, or locusts (Mk 1:6) as the early Gospels were transmitted orally). He rejects the "man-made" soft clothes processed in the cities (Lu 7:25). He maintains a wholesome distance from the urban centers of Cain. He is ensconced in the pristine wilderness. And his cry is that we return to this Wilderness, which is Eden:

With this cry, a great boundary is drawn across the Levant. St. Peter likened it to a second Noah's flood (1 Peter 3:20-21). For on one side lay a mind that is never free of filth: "the thoughts of [man's] heart were only evil continually," saith the Lord (Gen 6:5)." On the other side of this great divide, a new creation, cleansed with "many waters" (Ps 18:16). "Enter these waters!" the Baptist cried. "There God does battle with the powers of chaos. And in these waters you will be made new."

From the Creation of the world, when God's Spirit hovered "void; and darkness" and "was on the face of the deep" (Gen 1:2) to the parting of Red Sea waters to the mastery of the wind and waves evinced by God's Son and then on through Isaiah and the Psalms, which attest YHWH's victory overt the sea monster, the signature Divine act is to wrest order out of chaos. And the great image of chaos in the ancient Hebrew imagination was the all-powerful and restless sea.

Go back over the centuries, and meditate on icons of the Theophany. Look down into these dark waters, and there you will find the sea monster Leviathan. In the icon posted with this reflection, the sea monster bears upon its back the "old man" of our fallen human nature (for age manifests the claims of death). On the other sea monster, we find a fallen angel, a demon. These are the waters into which God descends doing battle with the forces of darkness:

In Proto-Isaiah we find this:

The locus classicus of the world's chaos is Pan-demonium (all demons), which is Hell. There Leviathan runs rampant as a fresco (also posted with this reflection) from Gelati Monastery (Republic of Georgia) vividly depicts. The icon is named "Hell Mouth" represented as Leviathan with a gaping mouth stretched open, where lesser reptiles carry on the work of chaos. Here is the anti-Eden, where reptilian figures dismember and consume the damned, completing the disintegration that had begun with chaotic life and the disease and eternal death that follow it.

This is the true scale and scope of God-with-us. For where One Person of the Holy Trinity is Present, the Fullness of the Holy Trinity is also Present, which is revealed on this day of the Lord's Baptism. It was anticipated in the Psalms:

And to these waters the Holy Trinity drew near at the scene of Jesus' Baptism.

In this, we unlock a Gospel mystery. If Jesus is without sin, then why must He be baptized? But this question envisions a figure shivering in His human nakedness beside Jordan Stream. This question goes to the narrow view of our impoverished human senses. By contrast, the Feast of the Theophany, co-equal with Pascha in its ancient pedigree and cosmic significance, rises to highest Heaven. Here the Fullness of the Holy Trinity is manifest to humanity. This is not seen merely the baptism of the man Jesus, but rather an epic battle and the turning point of human history. For the Superabundance of the Holy Trinity is present to the human lifeworld going down into dark waters, re-enacting the First Creation, taking reptilian chaos into its Hands, and manifesting victory over death .... even to the foundations of the world.

We speculate that St. Athanasius would have seen this cosmic drama as surfacing something that was already true. For at the Incarnation, the fact of the Creator touching the Creation with His Divine Person produced a shock so profound that it flipped the telos of the human lifeworld from death to life (De Incarnatione). Still, the the material world continues to exert its ancient power. We must receive God's gift of New Eden. We must embrace it. As Athanasius says, by remaining wholly focused upon the Lord Jesus, our Savior, our Exemplar, our God, we retain goodly and godly order. You see, we follow His example, we follow His life. In this we participate in the Divine act.

Yet, should we stray from unity with God's will, we shall experience renewed stirrings of chaos. Even Sir Isaac Newton encoded this is in his Physics: chaos is irretrievably the way of the world and the constant devolution of our material universe. Our universe is constantly unraveling.

Many centuries previous, St. Paul had taught us that the way of the world is demonic:

He repeats this theme in his letter to the Church at Ephesus:

The unredeemed, material creation tends always towards chaos, carrying us along on its powerful and putrid tide .... if we will let it. For apart from the life of prayer lies only madness. Still, we seek angel-life.

The Kingdom of God is not of this world (Jn 18:36). And today we celebrate the Almighty Power of our God Who has condescended to be among us in this world yet instructing us to be, like Him, not of this world. He is the invincible bulwark protecting us from the menacing, elemental spirits of wrath. He imparts His saving powers to the waters of our baptism. Our Elder Brother, the Son of God, shows us the way. Into these waters, infused with the everlasting power of Divine life, we also descend. We have been stripped of the clothing of the old man. We descend, Eden-like, with every thread of our former lives carried off to be burned. The life of wrath perishes in these waters as we die to our former selves. The claims of chaotic Hell are loosed from us and washed away. A white garment awaits imparting the purity of Heaven as we emerge from the waters. We are anointed as befits our royal birthright. A candle, betokening the Light of the World, is ours to set on a lamp-stand, for we no longer relish hiding in darkness.

And we hear the words Jesus used to announce the new age of angel-life:

Yes, God has done all things for those with eyes to see and ears to hear. He has unhinged the iron doors of Hell. He has shattered the ancient power of demons. He has relumed the gentle fire of Eden. And He has opened the Gates of Heaven. The Creation, unto the foundations of the world, has been redeemed. But it remains for us to enter the waters of life. Should we stumble later, He has given us Confession of sin that we might be restored to Divine purity through the Second Baptism of Absolution.

Let the waters of this first baptism wash over the whole world! Let a tsunami, another Noah's Flood, purify every mind and heart! And may each life born into the world gladly strip themselves of every former vestige. Let us burn down our former lives with joy, and let us be drowned in the waters of Divine Baptism and Absolution. For a white robe, a candle, precious unguents, and the Kingdom of Heaven await. And in this rarefied atmosphere, we remember the words Jesus announced when He called His Disciples:

Angel-life is ours for the having. A greater and purer world awaits. To those whose eyes are fixed upon the material world, it is invisible, even foolish (1 Cor 1:23-25). But for those who love God, it shimmers before us in a breathtaking beauty. And it surrounds us in its life-giving power, now and unto the ages of ages. Amen.

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