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Coming up soon (NC) is the feast of the Baptism of the Lord. So, I’d like to share some lesser-known fun facts about the symbolism of the Jordan River, in which He was baptised.
The name of the River ‘Jordan’ (Nehar ha-‘Yarden’ in Hebrew, from the Hebrew word ‘yarden’ or ‘ to flow down, descend’), means The Flowing Down or Descending One. The river begins from several sources at Mount Hermon in the north of the Holy Land, anddescendsfrom there southwards, through the Sea of Galilee and further down through Israel, until it terminates in the Dead Sea. This ‘descending’ aspect of the river is seen to symbolize Christ Himself, as the One who ‘ comes down’ from heaven, to ‘flow’ through Israel, spreading the Good News of grace and truth and life (symbolized by water). And the river’s starting-points at Mount ‘Hermon’ (meaning ‘sacred’), which is a mountain-cluster with threedistinct summits, seen to symbolize the Holy Trinity, is like ‘heaven’ or God’s dwelling-place, from where the Son of God ‘descends’ to us. The ultimate place of the Jordan, the Dead Sea, called in Hebrew ‘ The Sea of Salt’ (Yām HamMelaḥ) and/or ‘The Sea of the Pledge’ (Yām Ha'Ărāvâ, from the Hebrew word ‘eravon’ that means ‘pledge’ or ‘guarantee’ that an obligation will be fulfilled), symbolizes several things: 1. The death of Christ, in which He remains uncorrupted (and salt symbolizes incorruption); 2. The “ Holy Spirit of promise, Who is the guarantee(arrabon in Greek) of our inheritance...” (Eph 1:13-14); and 3. Because the waters stop in the Dead Sea and don’t flow further, but evaporate up into the air, it also symbolizes the resurrection and ascension.
Does any of this apply to our baptism? Yes, even though we are not baptized by the baptism of John, and most of us were not baptised in the Jordan. But we are, indeed, baptised in(to) the death and resurrection of Christ. One could say, we are baptised into the ‘flow’ of our Lord’s movement, ‘descending’ down into His (and our) vocation of service to others in word and deed, even unto death and resurrection in His Spirit. In early Christianity, being baptised into His ‘flow’ was accentuated, when the preferred way of celebrating baptisms was in ‘ living water,’ meaning in rivers, in flowing water. But even if we are not baptised in a river, we remember that Christ’s ‘baptism’ or ‘immersion’ (which is what ‘baptism’ means) into the waters of the Jordan sanctifies all the ‘waters’ of our world, including whatever waters in which we were baptised. Just like the other classical elements, like earth, air/wind and fire are sanctified: earth, (previously cursed in Gen 3:17) – by His burial in the ground; air/wind – by His ascension and by the ‘ rushing mighty wind’ of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost (Acts 2:2); and fire – by the ‘ tongues, as of fire’ that rested on the Church on that same occasion (Acts 2:3), and that invisibly rests upon us in every sacrament, in which we are baptised/immersed “ in the Holy Spirit and fir” (Mt 3:11). Glory be to Him.❤🔥
