When I baptize others, I baptize into Your name, in order that they may believe in You, who comest with glory; but when I baptize You, of whom shall I make mention? And into whose name shall I baptize You? Into that of the Father? But You have the Father altogether in Yourself, and You are altogether in the Father. Or into that of the Son? But beside You there is no other Son of God by nature. Or into that of the Holy Spirit? But He is ever together with You, as being of one substance, and of one will, and of one judgment, and of one power, and of one honour with You; and He receives, l along with You, the same adoration from all.
Wherefore, O Lord, baptize me, if You please; baptize me, the Baptist. Regenerate one whom You caused to be generated. I Extend Your dread right hand, which You have prepared for Yourself, and crown my head by Your touch, in order that I may run the course before Your kingdom, crowned like a forerunner, and diligently announce the good tidings to the sinners, addressing them with this earnest call: “Behold the Lamb of God, that takes away the sin of the world!” O river Jordan, accompany me in the joyous choir, and leap with me, and stir your waters rhythmically, as in the movements of the dance; for your Maker stands by you in the body.
Once of old you saw Israel pass through you, and you divided your floods, and waited in expectation of the passage of the people; but now divide yourself more decidedly, and flow more easily, and embrace the stainless limbs of Him who at that ancient time did convey the Jews through you. You mountains and hills, you valleys and torrents, you seas and rivers, bless the Lord, who has come upon the river Jordan; for through these streams He transmits sanctification to all streams.
And Jesus answered and said to him: Allow it to be so now, for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. Allow it to be so now; grant the favour of silence, O Baptist, to the season of my economy. Learn to will whatever is my will. Learn to minister to me in those things on which I am bent, and do not pry curiously into all that I wish to do. Allow it to be so now: do not yet proclaim my divinity; do not yet herald my kingdom with your lips, in order that the tyrant may not learn the fact and give up the counsel he has formed with respect to me.
Permit the devil to come upon me, and enter the conflict with me as though I were but a common man, and receive thus his mortal wound. Permit me to fulfil the object for which I have come to earth. It is a mystery that is being gone through this day in the Jordan. My mysteries are for myself and my own. There is a mystery here, not for the fulfilling of my own need, but for the designing of a remedy for those who have been wounded. There is a mystery, which gives in these waters the representation of the heavenly streams of the regeneration of men.
Allow it to be so now: when you see me doing what seems to me good among the works of my hands, in a manner befitting divinity, then attune your praises to the acts accomplished. When you see me cleansing the lepers, then proclaim me as the framer of nature. When you see me make the lame ready runners, then with quickened pace do thou also prepare your tongue to praise me. When you see me cast out demons, then hail my kingdom with adoration. When you see me raise the dead from their graves by my word, then, in concert with those thus raised, glorify me as the Prince of Life.
When you see me on the Father's right hand, then acknowledge me to be divine, as the equal of the Father and the Holy Spirit, on the throne, and in eternity, and in honour. Allow it to be so now; for thus it becomes us to fulfil all righteousness. I am the Lawgiver, and the Son of the Lawgiver; and it becomes me first to pass through all that is established, and then to set forth everywhere the intimations of my free gift. It becomes me to fulfil the law, and then to bestow grace.
It becomes me to adduce the shadow, and then the reality. It becomes me to finish the old covenant, and then to dictate the new, and to write it on the hearts of men, and to subscribe it with my blood, and to seal it with my Spirit. It becomes me to ascend the cross, and to be pierced with its nails, and to suffer after the manner of that nature which is capable of suffering, and to heal sufferings by my suffering, and by the tree to cure the wound that was inflicted upon men by the medium of a tree.
It becomes me to descend even into the very depths of the grave, on behalf of the dead who are detained there. It becomes me, by my three days' dissolution in the flesh, to destroy the power of the ancient enemy, death. It becomes me to kindle the torch of my body for those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death. It becomes me to ascend in the flesh to that place where I am in my divinity. It becomes me to introduce to the Father the Adam reigning in me. It becomes me to accomplish these things, for on account of these things I have taken my position with the works of my hands.
It becomes me to be baptized with this baptism for the present, and afterwards to bestow the baptism of the consubstantial Trinity upon all men. Lend me, therefore, O Baptist, your right hand for the present economy, even as Mary lent her womb for my birth. Immerse me in the streams of Jordan, even as she who bore me wrapped me m children's swaddling-clothes. Grant me your baptism even as the Virgin granted me her milk. Lay hold of this head of mine, which the seraphim revere.
With your right hand lay hold of this head, that is related to yourself in kinship. Lay hold of this head, which nature has made to be touched. Lay hold of this head, which for this very purpose has been formed by myself and my Father. Lay hold of this head of mine, which, if one does lay hold of it in piety, will save him from ever suffering shipwreck. Baptize me, who am destined to baptize those who believe in me with water, and with the Spirit, and with fire: with water, capable of washing away the defilement of sins; with the Spirit, capable of making the earthly spiritual; with fire, naturally fitted to consume the thorns of transgressions.
On hearing these words, the Baptist directed his mind to the object of the salvation, and comprehended the mystery which he had received, and discharged the divine command; for he was at once pious and ready to obey. And stretching forth slowly his right hand, which seemed both to tremble and to rejoice, he baptized the Lord. Then the Jews who were present, with those in the vicinity and those from a distance, reasoned together, and spoke thus with themselves and with each other: Was it, then, without cause that we imagined John to be superior to Jesus?
Was it without cause that we considered the former to be greater than the latter? Does not this very baptism attest the Baptist's pre-eminence? Is not he who baptizes presented as the superior, and he who is baptized as the inferior? But while they, in their ignorance of the mystery of the economy, babbled in such wise with each other, He who alone is Lord, and by nature the Father of the Only-begotten, He who alone knows perfectly Him whom He alone in passionless fashion begot, to correct the erroneous imaginations of the Jews, opened the gates of the heavens, and sent down the Holy Spirit in the form of a dove, lighting upon the head of Jesus, pointing out thereby the new Noah, yea the maker of Noah, and the good pilot of the nature which is in shipwreck.
And He Himself calls with clear voice out of heaven, and says: “This is my beloved Son,” —the Jesus there, namely, and not the John; the one baptized, and not the one baptizing; He who was begotten of me before all periods of time and not he who was begotten of Zacharias; He who was born of Mary after the flesh, and not he who was brought forth by Elisabeth beyond all expectation; He who was the fruit of the virginity yet preserved intact, and not he who was the shoot from a sterility removed; He who has had His conversation with you, and not he who was brought up in the wilderness.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased: my Son, of the same substance with myself, and not of a different; of one substance with me according to what is unseen, and of one substance with you according to what is seen, yet without sin. This is He who along with me made man. This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased. This Son of mine and this son of Mary are not two distinct persons; but this is my beloved Son,—this one who is both seen with the eye and apprehended with the mind.
This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased; hear Him. If He shall say, I and my Father are one, hear Him. If He shall say, He that has seen me has seen the Father, hear Him. If He shall say, He that has sent me is greater than I, adapt the voice to the economy. If He shall say, Whom do men say that I the Son of man am? answer Him thus:
Source: Four Homilies (New Advent)