A theophany occurs at the baptism of Jesus by John. What is revealed in the audible and visible coincidence of the voice of God declaring the Father’s pleasure in his Son, the dove descending, and the incarnate Word is nothing less than the Trinity itself, in the fullness of its shared love, its imminent dynamism of distinction and unity. The constellation of figures in this tableau constitutes an icon, a crystallization of the mystery of faith in one perfect image. This is not a simple allegory, but a real showing of God, manifesting simultaneously the full drama of salvation and the full order of intradivine relations, revealing them to be not only compatible motions but identical. The descent into the waters, whereby Christ submits to a sanctification of which he is in no need, is an image both of the way of the Son into creation, his gracious descent into flesh, time, and space, ultimately into the darkness of death and hell, but also of the way the Son goes forth eternally from the Father and restoring all to him in “selfless” adoration. Christ’s emergence from the waters is at once his resurrection , his ascent and return of all creation to the Father as a pure offering, and also his eternal “response” to the Father as the Father’s everlasting Word. The descent of the dove is at once the blessing of the Spirit, sent by the Father upon the Son and imparted by the Son to his church as the teacher of all truth, who bears tidings of Christ, but also the Father’s eternal gift to the Son of the Spirit, who forever bears the joy of the Son to the Father. Read on »