In the Canon, the whole story of the Lord’s Baptism is set forth with all its miraculous manifestations, which marked Jesus Christ’s entry into His general ministry with regard to the race of man.  Again it voices the fact that the Lord Himself was in no need of any purification, but that He was baptised that we might be cleansed from sin, that He might reveal His Divine worthiness to the world, and that He might illumine all peoples with the light of the true knowledge of God.  Referring to the inner significance of the Baptism, it states that Jesus Christ, in taking on Himself human flesh also took on Himself all the burden of the curse that weighed upon us, and accepted death for our sins, immersing His flesh in the streams of the Jordan as a sign that He is the Destroyer of sin, the Dissolver of the curse and the Victor over death.  By His Baptism, He as it were drowned the sinfulness of our nature which had become corrupted; He routed our age-old foe, the devil, in the hidden recesses of the abyss themselves. In the canon it states that the Baptism of the Saviour is saving for the whole race of man in the same way as the Mysterion of Baptism, which He thus inaugurated, is saving for each individual man. 

The prokeimenon speaks of the Lord’s appearance on earth: “Blessed is he that cometh in the name of Lord; God is the Lord and hath appeared unto us.”

The Apostle reading (Titus 2:11-14, 3:4-7) tells how the coming of the Saviour upon earth brought the grace of salvation.

The Gospel (Matt. 3:13-17) proclaims the Saviour’s Baptism by John the Forerunner.

The Megalynarion is:-

Magnify, O my soul, her who is more honourable
than the hosts on high, the immaculate Virgin Theotokos.
Every tongue is at a loss to praise thee as is meet;
even a spirit from the world above is filled with distraction,
when it seeks to laud thee, O Theotokos;
but since thou art good, accept our faith:
Thou knowest well our love inspired by God,f
or thou art the protectress of Christians,
and we magnify thee.

The Communion hymn is: “The grace of God that bringeth salvation unto all hath appeared.”

On the feast of the Lord’s Baptism two Great Blessings of the Waters are appointed.  The first is held in church on the eve of the feast, and the second on the day itself and it is held outside at a river or spring, [sometimes on the sea shore].

Both of these blessings are celebrated in this way: the clergy proceed out from the sanctuary through the Royal Gates holding aloft the Holy Cross and preceded by candles.  During this procession, the choir sings, “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters,…” and the other appointed troparia, which proclaim the Baptism of Jesus Christ.  After [three Old Testament readings, an Epistle and] the Gospel reading, the deacon intones a litany, and the priest then reads a prayer for the blessing of water, in which he beseeches the Lord to grant unto those who partake of the waters and who are sprinkled with them sanctification, health, cleansing and a blessing.  After the prayer, the priest plunges the Holy Cross into the waters three times, as we sing the troparion of the feast, “When Thou was baptised in the Jordan, O Lord, the worship of the Trinity was made manifest….”  Then the priest sprinkles the whole church with the blessed water, and the people and their homes.  The practice of blessing waters on the day of the Baptism has been known since the third century.

to be continued with the “Services of the Feast of the Meeting of the Lord”...