Epiphany Hymn 9: Baptism with Understanding

O John, you who saw the Spirit

that rested on the head of the Son,

to show how the Head of the Most High

went down and was baptized,

and came up to be Head on earth!

In this way you have become children of the Spirit,

and Christ has become the Head for you;

you also have become his members.

Refrain: Blessed is he who came down and sanctified water for the forgiveness of the sins of the children of Adam!

Consider and see how exalted you are:

how instead of the river Jordan

you have glorious baptism, in which there is peace,

spreading her wings to shade your bodies.

John baptized in the wilderness;

in her pure flood of baptism

you are purely baptized.

Little children think, when they see its glory,

that its might is increased by its pomp.

But it is the same, and within itself

it is not divided.

Yet the might, which never grows less or greater,

is little in us, or again great;

and in the one who has great understanding,

baptism is great.

If a man’s knowledge is exalted,

his rank is exalted above his brothers as well;

and whoever’s faith is great,

so also is his promise;

and as his wisdom is, so also is his crown.

It is like the light, which, though it is all goodly

and all of it equal with itself,

yet one eye is better than another.

Jesus mingled his might in the water:

put him on, my brothers and sisters, as people of discernment!

For there are some who in the water only

perceive that they are washed. Let our soul be washed with our body!

Let the body perceive the visible water,

and the soul the secret might,

so that you may be made like both the visible and the secret!

How beautiful baptism is

in the eye of the heart! Come, let us gaze on it!

You have been molded as if by a seal;

receive its image,

so that nothing of our image may be lacking to us!

For the sheep that are white of heart

gaze on the glory that is in the water:

reflect it in your souls!

Water is by nature like a mirror

for anyone who examines himself in it.

Stir up your soul, you who have discernment,

and be like it!

For it reflects your image in its midst;

from it, and on it, find an example;

gaze on baptism in it,

and put on the beauty that is hidden there!

What does it profit someone who hears

a voice and does not know what it means?

Whoever hears a voice and has no

understanding of it,

his ear is filled but his soul is empty.

See, since the gift is abundant,

receive it with discernment.

Baptism with understanding

is the joining of two lights,

and the fountains of its rays are rich.

……

And the darkness that lies on the mind departs,

and the soul beholds him in beauty,

the hidden Christ of glory,

and grieves when the glory fails.

Baptism without understanding

is a treasure that is full and yet empty,

since the one who receives it is poor in it;

for he does not understand

how great are the riches he enters into and dwells in.

For great is the gift within it,

though the small-minded man does not perceive

that he has been raised as high as it is.

Open wide your minds and see, my brothers and sisters,

the secret pillar in the air, whose base is set firm in the midst of the water

and reaches to the door of the highest place, like the ladder that Jacob saw.

See, by it the light came down to baptism,

and by it the soul goes up to heaven,

so that we may be mingled in one love.

When our Lord was baptized by John,

he sent out twelve fountains;

and they went out and with their streams cleansed

the defilement of the peoples.

His worshipers are made white like his garments:

the garments on Tabor, and the body in the water.

In place of the garments the peoples are made white,

and they have become a robe of glory for him.

Learn from your garments, my brothers and sisters,

how your limbs should be kept.

For if a garment, which any number of times

can be made clean,

is carefully kept for the sake of its good looks,

then for the body, which has only one baptism,

far greater is the care needed in keeping it,

for its dangers are many.

Again, the sun in a narrow house

is confined there, though he is great;

but in a house that is goodly and large,

when he rises on it,

he spreads his rays far and wide in it;

and though the sun is one and the same in his nature,

in different houses he undergoes changes.

So it is with our Lord in different people.