Just As He Is

Tomorrow Monday is the Feast of Theophany in the Orthodox Church — the commemoration of Jesus’s baptism in the river Jordan. It has become my favorite feast, for reasons I talked about in this 2014 post (above is the image of our former priest, Father Matthew Harrington, blessing the Mississippi River on the Feast of Theophany, 2014).

We had three baptisms in our little mission parish this afternoon. I’m not going to disclose private information, of course, but one of the three is a young man who has become especially dear to me. He has such a noble spirit, and he doesn’t even know it. He has been badly battered by life, especially of late, and is exhausted. I have seen lots of people come to the Orthodox church through baptism and chrismation, but I don’t know that I’ve ever seen one who bears such humility in his face, and who has come to the riverside after such a punishing journey. He approached the baptismal font — we practice full immersion baptism — with tears in his eyes. I thought, “Yes, brother, Jesus came for you, for men like you — ‘blessed are the poor in spirit’ — and now He has found you.”

It’s very easy to become cynical, even despairing, about church matters. But on a day like today, in a moment like the one we just witnessed here in our little parish in a rental hall, you realize what the Christian faith is about in its purest form. This young man’s face this afternoon was, to my eyes, the embodiment of that beautiful spiritual, here performed by the incomparable Mahalia Jackson, Just As I Am.

Just as I am, without one plea

But that Thy blood was shed for me

And that Thou bid’st me come to Thee

O Lamb of God, I come! I come

Just as I am, though tossed about

With many a conflict, many a doubt

Fighting and fears within without

O Lamb of God, I come, I come

Just as I am, and waiting not

to rid my soul of one dark blot

to thee whose blood can cleanse each spot

O Lamb of God, I come, I come

Just as I am, poor, wretched, blind

Sight, riches, healing of the mind

Yea, all I need, in Thee to find

O Lamb of God, I come, I come!

It’s hard to imagine two expressions of Christianity more aesthetically different than Orthodoxy and the African-American church tradition, but when it comes right down to it, what Mahalia Jackson sings is what we sing, in our deepest hearts and souls. I wish I could show you the photo I took of my brother on the verge of his baptism, but of course I can’t violate his privacy. I am saving it, though, for the church in the generations to come, after he becomes a saint, so they will have an image from which to write his icon. With a broken heart like he has, and such purity of spirit, God can do mighty things. What a grace it was to witness this new birth! There is so much grief and suffering in this world of liquid modernity, but truth, beauty, and goodness arise from the water too. I need to remember that. You do too, probably.

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