The Theophany icon is the moment recounted in the Gospels when the adult Jesus approaches Saint John the Baptist at the River Jordan and asks to be baptized. John, who recognizes Jesus as Christ, bows down and says, “One who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to carry his sandals” (Matthew 3:11 NRSA). Notice how Christ in the water is below John, who was called “the greatest born among women” and considered to have reached the highest peak of Old Testament righteousness. Bowing from a great height, the prophet and forerunner obediently pours river water on Christ’s head, and as he does, the Holy Spirit descends from the sky in the form of a dove. The voice of God the Father is heard saying, “This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17 NASB).
This event and corresponding feast day in the Church calendar is called Theophany because it was the first recorded New Testament “shining forth” of God, and specifically of God as Trinity. Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as one, proclaim the humility of Christ, who by taking on human flesh, and condescending to be baptized, purified the waters of the cosmic world. Notice how even the spirits of the water submit themselves to him.
The Trinitarian revelation at the Jordan is echoed in the structure of the icon, with its three vertical columns and three horizontal planes united in Christ. Horizontal, cosmic emotions and energies are blessed and baptized through Christ’s own baptism. Even the small white figure at the top center of the icon reinforces the Trinitarian theme. Since Church Fathers forbade the practice of depicting God the Father in iconography at the Seventh Ecumenical Council, this figure is not God the Father, rather it is Lord of Sabaoth, the iconographic proclamation of the unity of the Trinity, one God.
In baptism, as understood by the Orthodox Church, each person becomes what he or she was initially conceived to be in Paradise. Water pouring over the Anointed One becomes purified and cleansed. Angels rejoice. So, too, within every baptized person, the soul’s energies or waters are purified, able to apprehend the Logos Emmanuel, who is literally “God-With-Us.” Baptized and made manifest, the Logos Spermatikos, the indwelling seed, is now able to unfurl within the believer.