"The Christ is illuminated; let us take part in his splendor. The Christ is baptized; let us go down with him into the water so that we may come out of it with him...John baptizes, Jesus comes to him; he comes to sanctify the one by whom he himself is baptized. He comes to drown in the water of the old Adam, entirely, and for this reason, and before doing so, he consecrates the water of the Jordan. He, who is spirit and flesh, wants to perfect man through water and spirit. The Baptist refuses and Jesus insists. “I am the one who needs to be baptized by you” says the lamp to the Sun, the best man to the groom, the greatest man born of a woman to the first-born of all creatures. Jesus comes out of the water, carrying along with him in this elevation the whole universe. He sees the skies open up, the same skies that in the past Adam had closed to himself and to his people, this paradise that had been locked up and guarded like by a fiery revolving sword. The Spirit bears witness to the divinity of Christ; he comes to rejoin his equal. And a voice comes down from the sky, for it is from the sky that the one to whom he testifies comes from. And a dove makes itself visible to the eyes of the flesh in order to honor our flesh became divine."
-St. Gregory Nazianzen.
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