Sunday marks the celebration of our Lord’s baptism. I share this beautiful piece by Gregory of Nazianzus because it is beautiful and because it helps remind those of us who call ourselves, “Christian,” why Jesus’ baptism is significant to us.

Christ is bathed in light; let us also be bathed in light. Christ is baptized; let us also go down with him, and rise with him. John is baptizing when Jesus draws near. He who is spirit and flesh comes to begin a new creation through the Spirit and water. The Baptizer protests. The greatest of all born of woman [John] [is] in the presence of the firstborn of all creation.

Jesus rises from the waters; the world rises with him. The heavens like Paradise with its flaming sword, closed by Adam for himself and his descendants, are rent open. The Spirit comes to him as to an equal, bearing witness to his Godhead.

Let us do honor to Christ’s baptism and celebrate this feast in holiness. Be cleansed entirely and continue to be cleansed. Nothing gives such pleasure to God as the conversion and salvation of human beings, for whom his every word and every revelation exist. He wants you to become a living force for all humanity, lights shining in the world. You are to be radiant lights as you stand beside Christ, the great light, bathed in the glory of him who is the light of heaven. You are to enjoy more and more the pure and dazzling light of the Trinity, as now you have received—though not in its fullness—a ray of its splendor, proceeding from the one God, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to whom be glory and power for ever and ever.

—Gregory of Nazianzus, Oration 39

Are you standing beside Christ so that you can draw on his Power to be his radiant light? This doesn’t mean you have to be famous or do something spectacular. It means you have to do what God in Christ is calling you to do. How are you being Christ’s light shining in the world?