Indeed, the Jordan River is unique. The lives of Joshua, Elijah, St John the Baptist and even Jesus share astonishing characteristics on the highly symbolic aspect of the place. Today we highlight some of them.
Newsroom (11/01/2022 9:01 AM, Gaudium Press) St. John chose the region of the Jordan to administer his baptism, out of caution against the Pharisees’ opposition to anything that might shake the solid establishment of Jewish society at that time.
Above all, however, we are struck by the highly symbolic aspect of the place.
The Jordan was the river that the Jews had crossed when they entered the Promised Land, whose waters, opened by Joshua with the Ark of the Covenant (cf. Jos 3:14-17), separated Egyptian slavery from the freedom obtained after forty years of penance in the desert.
Also the prophet Elijah, before being carried in the chariot of fire to an unknown place, had thrown his cloak over the waters of the Jordan to divide them, passing to the opposite bank without getting wet, in the company of Elisha (cf. II Kings 2:8).
On his return, Elisha crossed the river – Elijah had already disappeared, leaving him his cloak -, once again wounding the waters with the prophetic cloak, in the name of “the God of Elijah” (cf. II Kings 2:13-14).
In an analogous way, according to St. Thomas, “Christ’s Baptism […] introduces us into the Kingdom of God, symbolized in the Promised Land. [And to the same topic belongs the division of the waters of the Jordan by Elijah, who was to be taken up to heaven in a chariot of fire […], for those who pass through the waters of Baptism have their entry into heaven opened by the fire of the Holy Spirit.
Such are the symbolic reasons that made John choose these waters to baptize.
Msgr. João Scognamiglio Clá Dias, EP
Text extracted from the magazine Herald of the Gospel n. 133, January 2013.
