Okay, I’m afraid of closed-in places. I think it’s called claustrophobia, but the first time I remember discovering this uneasy feeling was when I was a boy and we were playing hide-and-seek. I found this perfect hiding place in a small cupboard in the kitchen. And it must have been a good spot, because no one could find me, but after a few minutes in that closed place, I started feeling a little panicky. Soon I abandoned my great hiding place, and by jumping out of the cupboard in a cold sweat, everybody knew where I was. I don’t like confined places.

It’s funny, because nowadays, due to my discomfort with closed-in places and my previous police training, the first thing I do when I walk into a new building is to look for all the exits! Sad, isn’t it? But we humans have an innate desire to be free. We want not to be confined to this or that place or restriction or even relationships. We want to make sure we know where all the exits are in our lives. This desire for freedom often gets warped in our lives due to our spiritual blindness and broken human will. We see this desire for freedom morph into an inability to commit or to embrace timeless wisdom meant to help us. We wrestle against authority in an attempt to escape the confines of that authority. See, we want to be free, and that’s not a bad thing, but without the healing of repentance where our freedom is gained through slavery to Christ, we will constantly be our own worst enemy.

Look at our gospel lesson today in John 10:39-42. This is the lesson for the afterfeast of the Theophany of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Scripture declares:

At that time, the Jews tried to arrest him, but he escaped from their hands. He went away again across the Jordan to the place where John at first baptized, and there he remained. And many came to him and they said, “John did no sign, but everything that John said about this Man was true.” And many believed in him there.

You see, our Lord’s coming and his baptism inaugurates a new reality for the world, and this new reality is a threat to the old ways, the old religions, and the old power structure, so that the very structure seeks to stifle and arrest this threat to its power. Makes sense. Extinction is hard on dinosaurs. But there is no turning back: God has become flesh. There is no unringing this bell. This event has set in motion the final act in God’s plan to truly liberate [us] humans and give us the one escape we must enter if we are to ever be truly free. But make no mistake: this freedom is scary, because it really does undo all our desires about what true freedom really is.

The people of the Lord’s day recognized this in Christ and testified that everything that John said about this Man was true. He really is the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. He really is mightier than John, and we really are unworthy even to untie his shoes. He really is the One who baptizes with the Holy Spirit and makes [us] humans a fit habitation for God. He really does have his winnowing fork in his hand, and he really is dividing the wheat from the chaff. The appearance of Christ means the end of humanity’s kindergarten age and a challenge to grow beyond the religions of the past into the new and living way—at least according to Hebrews 10:20—that Christ inaugurates to give us the ultimate freedom to finally become what we were made to be in the first place. It’s the ultimate freedom; it’s the ultimate escape.

Today, has your definition of freedom been transformed and transfigured by your faith? Does your relationship with God—your slavery to him—set you free from the old desires to be your own boss and have it your way? Are you discovering that the old way of living only deepens your slavery to your own selfish ways? Today it’s time to join the Lord in escaping from their hands—the hands of doubt, fear, ignorance, and greed—and into the true freedom of being liberated from all those false identities to the true identity of a child of God. It’s time to refresh your baptismal vows and to constantly allow the freedom of Christ to make you who you really are. It’s time to be Orthodox on purpose.