Word on the Baptism of the Lord. St. prv Alexy (Mechev)

Let us transfer our thoughts, dear ones, to that sacred place where the Baptism of our Lord Jesus Christ took place. And now our eyes are presented with a deeply instructive, wondrous, full of Divine majesty picture of the Jordanian event. When Jesus Christ was 30 years old, He came to the Jordan, where John was baptizing the people, and said that He, too, had come to be baptized. God revealed to John who was approaching him, and he exclaimed, "I need to be baptized by You." But Jesus answered, "Do not hold me back, for in this way we must do the will of God." At these words, He descended into the water, and when He sank, the sky opened and the Holy Spirit descended on Him in the form of a dove, the Voice of God the Father was heard: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.”
John baptized the people with a baptism of repentance. But did the Sinless, Most Holy God-Man Jesus Christ really have sins, had such habits? Of course no. He had no sins. He had nothing to repent of… Yes, He did not have His own personal sins, but the sin of the world weighed heavily on His Divine conscience. The founder of the New Kingdom, whose basis is self-sacrificing love, by which the members of this Kingdom are known, from the very beginning of His ministry, gives the world a model of this love. Just as a shepherd, when a sinner repents before him - a spiritual son, takes upon himself his heartfelt, repentant pains and lifts these cries to the Lord as if they were his own, so Christ, the Divine Shepherd, when Palestine groaned with repentant cries, seeing with His All-Seeing Eye the whole abyss of the sinful world, bowed His Head under the hand of Forerunner, laying down His prayer for this repentance and cleansing of the sinful world under it. That, dear ones, is how to love your neighbors! One must suffer his sorrows, suffer from his illnesses. A wondrous spectacle! The King of the Universe is baptized by a slave, the Creator of the seas and waters needs the water of baptism, He who holds the whole creation with his hand bows under the hand of the Forerunner. And all for our sake, man! God is diminished more than all the sons of men. That's what Christ's love is. This is the law, this is the truth of this love.

It is possible to love your neighbor in no other way and not before every self-love, every pride is trampled in our heart. He who does not know how to humble himself before his servant for the sake of saving his neighbor, who does not know how to forget his personality when it comes to the good of his neighbor, he does not have in himself the spirit of true humility, and where there is no humility, there can be no virtue. And here, as if wanting to intensify the suffering of Jesus Christ, God the Father Himself broadcasts from heaven: “This is My beloved Son, favored over Him,” and the Holy Spirit descends in the form of a dove. And this True Son of God, the fullness of the Holy Spirit humbles himself, teaching us all this humility. Come, dear ones, let us see Christ the Redeemer, from the Forerunner baptized in the streams of the Jordan; come, let us meet the Lord who has appeared. Amen.