Although in the very mystery of the Lord's incarnation there were always clear tokens of divinity, yet that God had come into a human body today's solemnity opens and reveals in many ways, lest our mortality, always wrapped in obscuring clouds, should lose through ignorance what it merited to hold and possess through grace. For He who willed to be born for us did not will to be unknown by us: and therefore He so opens Himself, lest the great sacrament of piety should become the occasion of a great error. Today the Magus finds wailing in a cradle Him whom he sought shining among the stars. Today the Magus marvels at Him bright in swaddling-clothes, whom he long endured obscure among the stars. Today the Magus ponders with deep astonishment what and where he sees:
heaven on earth, earth in heaven, man in God, God in man, and Him whom the whole world cannot contain shut up in a tiny little body. Whence the Magus, who cannot grasp what he is unable to scrutinize, forthwith adores; for he sees that the stars, the moon, the sun do not so shine in heaven as he beholds that Flesh to have shone upon earth; he sees that in one and the same body the commerce of divinity and of humanity has met together. Here, while he believes God, he perceives a King, he understands that He will die out of love for the human race, and with trembling thought he considers how God can die, how, restored to life, He can be slain. And thus the Magus ceases to seek by art what by art he cannot find:
and because he sees that in heaven he long went astray among the wandering stars, he rejoices that on earth he has come to God under the guidance of a single star, and the Magus discovers that all the things which are seen in heaven, clear to human eyes, are obscured by deep mysteries. And now, seeing that he must believe and not dispute, he confesses with mystical gifts: God by frankincense, King by gold, one who would die by myrrh. God by frankincense, King by gold, that he might appease with a rich homage Him whom he had constantly offended by a curious and importunate practice; and he fulfils that which many suspect concerning the offering out of Ethiopia: 'Ethiopia shall stretch out her hands before God' (Ps. 67).
The Magus, coming before the Jew, sees Christ with his hands, because when the Jew was betraying Christ to Herod by his crime, then the Magus was confessing Christ to be God by his gifts. Hence it is that the Gentile who was last was made first: because then, from the faith of the Magi, the believing of the Gentiles was consecrated, and the cruelty of the Jews was marked out. Today Christ entered the channel of the Jordan, to wash away the sin of the world: that He came for this John himself bears witness. 'Behold the Lamb of God, behold Him who takes away the sins of the world' (John 1). Today the servant holds the Lord, man holds God, John holds Christ; he holds Him to receive pardon, not to give it. Today, as the prophet says: 'The voice of the Lord upon the waters' (Ps. 28). What voice?
'This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased' (Matt. 3). Today the voice of God is upon the waters, because, that God might prove the faith of our race, He Himself stands by as witness of His own Son, He Himself as voucher. 'This is My beloved Son,' because He had no other to give the testimony: the Father's secret had no arbiter; the divine generation knows no witness; the Godhead admits no knowledge from without, since the Son Himself says: 'No one knows the Son but the Father, neither does anyone know the Father but the Son' (Matt. 11). Today the Holy Spirit floats upon the waters in the likeness of a dove, so that, as that dove of Noah had announced that the flood of the world had departed (Gen. 8), so by this one it might be known, as a sign, that the everlasting shipwreck of the world had ceased;
nor, as that dove carried a sprig of the old olive, but it pours the whole richness of a new chrism upon the head of the new Parent, that it might fulfil what the prophet foretold: 'Therefore God, thy God, hath anointed thee with the oil of gladness above thy fellows' (Ps. 44). Today the Lord is upon the waters. Well is it 'upon the waters,' and not 'beneath the waters,' because Christ does not serve His baptism, but commands the sacraments. Today the God of majesty thundered; and if the Father thunders from heaven, if the Son stands in the streams of the Jordan, if the Holy Spirit appears bodily from on high; what is it that the Jordan, which fled at the presence of the ark of the Law (Josh. 3), does not flee back at the presence of the whole Trinity? What is it?
Because he who yields to piety begins to be no cause of fear. Here the Trinity exercises its whole grace, speaks with itself its whole charity: there it corrupted the elements, that it might train the little servant unto fear. Yet amid these things so great and so many, John stands undaunted, because he cannot fear who, born wholly unto the love of God, is proven so by angelic testimony. Today Christ gives the beginning of His heavenly signs, when He turns water into wine (John 2); so that He whom the Father had already approved as Son by His voice, might Himself prove Himself to be God by His powers, since He is the Author of the elements who transmutes the elements; and He Himself made nature, who labours not to act against nature: He transforms water into wine, so that in the vigour of the Godhead the dullness of our nature might make progress.
For He who from five loaves, by a flowing and stealthy increase, extended and enlarged the provision to five thousand men (Matt. 14), could by growing increments amplify and perpetuate the measures of wine for the wedding feast. But water was to be converted into the mystery of blood, so that Christ might offer pure cups from the vessel of His own body to those who drink, that He might fulfil that saying of the prophet: 'And my cup which inebriates, how excellent it is!' (Ps. 22). Now in three ways today the Godhead of Christ is proved: by the gift of the Magi, by the testimony of the Father, by the changing of water into wine; because the authority of Scripture has established that every word should stand upon three, saying: 'In the mouth of two or three witnesses shall every word stand' (Matt. 18).
But since this very festival admonishes us now to come to the Lord's table and to the joy of that cup, it suffices to have concluded ample matters in a brief discourse, through our Lord Jesus Christ, who lives and reigns now and always, and unto all the ages of ages. Amen.