St. Botolph’s parish, Afterfeast of Theophany, 10 January 2010
Save me, O God, for the waters are come in unto my soul. (Psalm 69 [69].1)
Our people fear death by water. Drowning, suffocating, as that fierce current wraps itself around you and pulls you down. To this day, when a man lies dying, we read the psalms that speak about drowning: ‘I am stuck fast in the mire of the deep, and there is no sure standing. I am come into the deeps of the sea, and a tempest hath overwhelmed me’. A people who live in dry deserts fears death by water. Water is the oasis that breathes life back into your flock, your camels, and you. Our Orthodox ancestors loved an oasis. But water is also the sea – the dread, alien sea: everything you fear. The sea, so terrible the Apostle John tells us: at the end of time, there is no more sea. Our people fear death by water. Imagine: you swim out, farther and farther from land, out into an open space. You no longer hear the gulls; you feel the velvet current around your body. Then, out in that unfathomable deep, your foot hits a smooth, moving surface. The back of a fish – or is it a whale – or worse? The terror of the deep strikes you. No foothold out there so far from land. At the mercy of the water – and all the nightmares that live in it. Your oldest fear, the fear of the little child, comes rushing in. Fascinating, yes: but fearful, because, there, in the deep, you have no control. Your foot touches the heads of the dragons that lurk in the waters.
That’s what dying is like. If you look deep into the eyes of someone who’s dying, you will see: we were not meant to die. Death is our enemy; and every death, is death by water. Drowning, suffocating, in the fluids of your own body. You struggle to free yourself from the wild current, as it wraps around and pulls you down. Every old childhood fear; every unfulfilled pledge, every bad memory comes flooding back. All the dragons that lurk in a deep sea. You swim out, farther from land, into a terrifying open space. Aren’t you afraid of it? Of course. Let your faith be as strong as steel, you’re no stronger than God. Jesus Christ, our God, feared death. His sweat fell like drops of blood, when he prayed to his Father: ‘Let this cup pass from me’. Anyone who’s fully human is afraid to die. But listen to the voice of the angels, whispering to him in the garden: ‘Don’t you remember? Years ago, in the River Jordan. John baptised you in the waters. You drowned in the waters of the Jordan – and, drowning there, you drowned death’. Plunge a Holy Cross, the icon of Christ, into the waters and they change. The heavens open, when the voice of God the Father says: ‘This is my beloved Son’. The farthest planet, the smallest star, unites with every creature on earth down to the tiniest speck of dust – when a dove hovers over the waters. Who is it? The Spirit that moved over the waters at the dawn of the world. Death is drowned – in the instant, when the Body of God, in the flesh, touches the waters. Why else would he accept to be baptised? He has no sin. He consents to be baptised in order to drown death. To dare to enter the unfathomable deep, and there, in the deep, to pull death down – death in all its forms, and to turn the deeps into the well-spring of life. What else is death but a mere biological life, cut off from God? A cockroach dies and doesn’t know it. We humans hate death because we know it. Like insects fallen into the middle of a pond, we can’t pull our bodies out by our own strength. So God descends into the waters, the terrible waters. In the waters, where all our dragons lurk unseen, Christ our God makes a pathway as over dry land. It all begins now, on this feast of Theophany.
Our Father Michael fell asleep around four o’clock on the eve of Theophany. Just as the bell tolls Vespers in a monastery, calling the brothers and sisters to the feast, Christ our Saviour called Father Michael. His soul knew it was the appointed time, the kairós – just like the kairón prayers at the foot of the iconostasis that the clergy say before they enter the holy altar. When I was writing these words, I could hear Fr. Michael telling me, as he did so often: ‘Do what you need to do, Father, I’ll say my own kairón prayers now’. God! But this kairón, how blessed it was! It wasn’t Fr. Michael’s time, but ours. It was a time for the farthest planet to unite with the smallest speck of dust. Time for the River Jordan to rush back and the mountains to leap for joy: because Christ our God was about to set foot in the waters. Since at least the eighth century, without interruption, our holy mother the Orthodox Church has blessed the waters at this season. We don’t call it Epiphany. It isn’t ‘the manifestation’, like a magic act. It is Theophany, when God manifests himself: in the depth of winter, he enters the waters of death in the flesh – and all the waters on the face of the earth are changed into one great baptismal font. At that moment, when in a monastery the Feast of Theophany was to begin, the holy angels whispered to Father Michael: ‘It is time for the Lord to act. Father, give the blessing’.
A priest lives in order to offer the Divine Liturgy. He lives, lifting up the holy vessels and offering to God his own of his own, on behalf of all and for all. When the time had come for the Lord to descend into the waters, Fr. Michael descended, too. As he went down to the deep, surely he carried our prayers with him – into the deep open space, where the dragons lurk. We descended with him, with every tear, every howl of pain from us, with everything inside us that shudders and pulls back at the unjust horror of death. There, in the depth, Christ our God plunged us into the great baptismal font. There he drowned all our fears. There, he who tramples death, smashed the head of the dragon lurking in the water, and carried Father Michael upward, with him, into the Divine Liturgy.
Beloved in Christ: Theophany, not Christmas, is the Winter Pascha. In the early Church, this feast was second only to the Resurrection of Christ: because it is our Resurrection. As we plunge the Life-Giving Cross into the font, then draw water from the font to bless our homes and heal us of everything that afflicts us in the year to come, we draw on the prayers of the Archpriest Michael, who has fallen asleep. From this time forward, we will sanctify the day: January the Sixth, the eve of Theophany, when Father Michael went to serve the Divine Liturgy. Our people, who fear death by water, now find in all the waters an oasis – a place to rest in the desert, a cool drink, and fresh water, to wash us clean of all the worst that life – and death – can ever do. On this feast of Theophany, God has manifested himself as never before. Our Fr. Michael has embarked on a journey: toward the sea, across the Jordan. We who have sat too long in the darkness, in the region and shadow of death, see the light that began to rise around four p.m. on the eve of the holy Theophany: the light that burst from the heavens, on that day when God descended into the waters; the light that guided our Fr. Michael and Khouriya Jeanne into the One, True Church; the light in the holy water; the light that we draw on, for the rest of our lives, whenever we pray:
Holy Father Michael, if you have found favour with God,
pray to God for us!