From the Jordan to Galilee: When Revelation Becomes Mission
A Reflection on the Sunday after the Theophany
Sunday after the Theophany – (Ephesians §224a (4:7-13) / Saint Matthew §8 (4:12-17))
The Feast of the Theophany reveals Christ as He truly is.
At the Jordan, the heavens are opened. The voice of the Father is heard. The Holy Spirit descends in visible form; not as metaphor or symbol, but as something the crowd could see: in the form of a Dove, white against the sky.
Here, at the waters of baptism, the mystery of the Holy Trinity is made manifest not to the initiated alone, but to the world. Christ is shown to be the beloved Son; creation itself bears witness; light breaks forth openly. Saint John the Baptist sees it. The people gathered at the riverbank see it. This is public revelation, given in broad daylight, at a place where travelers stop and merchants pass through.
And yet, almost immediately, the Gospel moves on.
The Sunday after Theophany does not linger at the river. It does not dwell on the vision or invite us to remain suspended in wonder. Instead, Saint Matthew tells us that Jesus withdraws into Galilee, and there begins to preach. He leaves the site of His glorification and walks north, into a region most religious authorities considered half-pagan.
This movement from the Jordan to Galilee is not accidental. It is the shape of Christian life itself.
Revelation Is Not an Ending
There is a subtle temptation in religious life to treat revelation as a resting place. We imagine that once God has revealed Himself, the work is finished. We mistake illumination for arrival. We want to build booths on the mountain and stay there.
But Theophany is not a conclusion; it is a beginning.
Christ does not remain standing in the waters of the Jordan, basking in divine affirmation. He does not gather crowds to reenact the moment or explain it at length. He does not establish a shrine at the spot where the Spirit descended. Instead, He departs and enters into obscurity, labor, and proclamation. He goes back to walking dusty roads, sleeping in borrowed rooms.
The pattern is unmistakable: what is revealed must now be given.
God does not show Himself so that we might hoard the vision. He shows Himself so that we might spend it. Carefully, faithfully, but spend it nonetheless. Revelation is not a trophy to be displayed. It is bread to be broken.
Why Galilee?
Galilee was not the obvious place to begin.
It was religiously suspect, culturally mixed, and distant from the centers of authority. Isaias himself names it “Galilee of the Gentiles,” a land marked by confusion and compromise. It was a place where Hebraic practice blurred at the edges, where Greek was spoken in the markets, where Roman soldiers passed through on their way to somewhere more important.
It was not the place one would choose to inaugurate a holy movement.
And yet this is precisely where Christ begins.
The Gospel insists that this, too, fulfills prophecy: “The people that sat in darkness have seen great light; and to them which sat in the region and shadow of death light is sprung up.”
Light does not appear where it is least needed. It appears where darkness is real.
Christ does not bring the Kingdom first to those who believe themselves already secure. He brings it to those who sit in shadow, along the roads of ordinary life, the way of the sea, where people trade, travel, argue, hope, and fail. Where fishermen mend nets and argue about the catch. Where women draw water and wonder if there is more to life than this.
Galilee is where people actually live. And that is where the Light goes.
The First Words After Theophany
After the heavens open, after the Spirit descends, after the Father speaks – after all of that – Christ’s first public words are strikingly simple:
“Do penance, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand.”
No display of power. No theological lecture on what was just revealed at the Jordan. He does not begin by explaining the Most Holy Trinity or unpacking the significance of His baptism.
Instead, there is a call.
Theophany reveals who Christ is. Galilee reveals what that revelation demands.
Illumination is not given for admiration alone. It summons conversion. Grace does not merely comfort; it confronts. Light does not only warm; it exposes. It shows us where we are, and it shows us that we cannot stay there.
The call to repentance is not a rebuke. It is an invitation to turn, to stop walking in one direction and begin walking in another. To stop living as though God were absent and begin living as though He were near. Because He is.
Revelation That Moves Outward
This pattern continues in the life of the Church.
Baptism, like Theophany, is a moment of revelation. The Christian is illumined, sealed, named, and claimed. It is a moment of profound grace.
But baptism does not remove us from the world; it sends us back into it changed, accountable, and bearing responsibility.
Saint Paul expresses this clearly: “Walk worthy of the vocation wherewith ye are called.”
The vocation revealed at the font must now be lived in Galilee – in the mixed, noisy, imperfect spaces of daily life. At the office where your coworker is difficult. In the home where patience runs thin. In the grocery store, the traffic jam, the argument that could go either way. Baptism does not exempt us from these places. It equips us for them.
We are not called to be holy in theory. We are called to be holy in Galilee.
A Word for Our Time
In many ways, our own age resembles Galilee.
It is loud, fractured, spiritually confused, and often hostile to clarity. Public spaces, especially online, can feel shallow, angry, and exhausting. Comment sections are battlegrounds. Social media rewards outrage. Nuance is punished; slogans are amplified. It is tempting to conclude that such places are beneath serious Christian attention, that the faithful should withdraw into smaller, safer circles where everyone already agrees.
But Christ did not avoid Galilee because it was messy.
He did not wait for the culture to purify itself before He began preaching. He did not demand that Galilee become Jerusalem first. He met people where they were – in their confusion, their compromise, their half-formed hopes – and He called them to something better.
The question is not whether our cultural “Galilee” is dark. The question is whether the Light will be carried there with humility, truth, and repentance.
Not as spectacle. Not as domination. Not as a way to win arguments or claim territory.
But as faithful presence.
As the kind of presence that listens before it speaks. That seeks to understand before it corrects. That is willing to be misunderstood, ignored, or rejected and remains present anyway.
This is harder than it sounds. It requires us to resist the urge to retreat from the fight.
Christ’s presence in Galilee was neither withdrawal nor conquest. It was proclamation: clear, uncompromising, and true.
From Vision to Faithfulness
The Sunday after Theophany teaches us that revelation is never static.
God reveals Himself and then He moves.
He does not give us visions so that we might become spiritual connoisseurs, collecting experiences and comparing notes. He gives us visions so that we might follow Him into the world He loves and is determined to save.
Those who follow Christ must do the same.
From the Jordan to Galilee. From illumination to mission. From vision to obedience.
The Light that has appeared now walks the roads of the world, the real roads, where real people live and struggle and hope. And those who have seen it are called not to remain by the river, admiring what they have witnessed, but to follow where it goes. Even if it goes to Galilee.
Especially if it goes to Galilee.
25 January 2026