A small waterway, lost in the sand and winding among the rocks of the spurs of the Lebanese mountains, is the natural boundary between the Muslim and Jewish worlds. Two thousand years ago, it became a mystical line, dividing the history of mankind into “before” and “after”. The name of the Palestinian river has become a household name. "Jordan" means any body of water or place where, on the feast of Epiphany, the rite of the Great Sanctification of Water is performed.
What does baptism mean?
In the Slavic tradition, “baptism” means participation in the life of Christ. In ancient times, this word was pronounced - baptism. By this we mean a certain mystical action relating to Christ and performed with His participation. The first meaning of the term “baptism” means a church sacrament (not a rite, but just a sacrament), through which a person becomes a member of a society of followers of the life and teachings of Jesus Christ.
In the Hellenic tradition, this action is called the word βαπτίζω (vaptiso), which means “immerse” or “dip”. Where in the Slavic translation of the Gospel it is written that John the Baptist performed the baptism in the Jordan River, one should understand “immersion”: “... and all Judah was baptized (immersed, dipped)”, etc. The Holy Prophet John did not invent this ceremony, but committed these acts on the basis of the Old Testament Jewish religious rite. Similar rituals can be found among many nations. For example, Hindus perform holy baths in rivers.
Ancient jewish custom
The law of Moses prescribed that ablutions be carried out at any desecration: touching the dead, eating forbidden food, a woman after bleeding, etc. According to the rites of the ancient Jews, any person of non-Jewish blood could join the Jewish faith. Such a person was called proselyte. In this case, a special ritual of accepting Gentiles into Judaism was prescribed, which included bathing. This can be called modern baptism of proselytes.
In all cases, ablution was carried out by means of complete immersion in the pond with the head. This was a symbolic act and had the mystical meaning of cleansing from sins. Only “water from God” possessed purifying properties: flowing from a source or collected rainwater.
Baptism of John
Jewish rites were known to John. At a certain time, he comes to the bank of the Jordan River and proclaims that the time of God's judgment is coming. The righteous will be awarded perfect eternal life in the kingdom of God, and sinners will be subject to eternal punishment. John preached that you can be saved from punishment only by repenting of your vices and correcting your life. “Come to Jordan,” the Baptist called, “come who wants to be saved!”
John gives a new meaning to the traditional Jewish ritual. Over the people who come to him, he performs a baptism in the Jordan River: he immerses him in water and does not allow him to go out until the person has completely cleansed his soul. Being the chosen one of God, he possessed the ability to see the secrets of the inner world. Not a confession about his crimes demanded by the prophet, but a decisive refusal from a sinful life. Gradually around John formed a whole community of new people being saved.
Baptism of jesus christ
Imbued with the menacing call of the prophet to repent of sins, many people came to him from all over Palestine. One day, Christ appeared on the Jordan. This event is described in detail by all four evangelists. Jesus did not have a single sin, did not need confession and cleansing. Evangelicals write that Christ, immersed in the Jordan, immediately, immediately came out of the water. The Prophet felt the holiness of the God-man and asked a perplexed question: "I need to be baptized from You, and Do you come to me?" The Savior commands him to perform the rite.
The acceptance of John's baptism by Christ is very important. This confirms the truth of the Baptist’s sermon that a new era of humanity’s morality is beginning. After baptism, Christ went to a secluded place in the Palestinian desert, where he spent forty days in prayer and only after that began a sermon among the Jews.
Why Jesus Baptized
Some Protestant denominations simplistically perceive the meaning of the event. In their view, Jesus was baptized in order to set an example for us. An example of what? The meaning of baptism is explained in the Gospel of Matthew. In chapter 5, Christ speaks of himself that he did not appear in the world in order to destroy the Old Testament law, but in order to fulfill it. In the original source, the meaning of this verb has a slightly different connotation. Christ came to complete the law, that is, by Himself to complete its action.
Theologians see in baptism several mystical moments:
- The river of Christ's baptism has opened to people new knowledge about God. Evangelicals testify that when the Savior came out of the water to the Savior, the Holy Spirit descended in the form of a dove, and everyone present heard a voice from heaven calling Christ the Son and commanding him to fulfill His teachings. Christians call this event the Epiphany, since for the first time the world was testified of God in three persons.
- By baptism, Jesus symbolizes the spiritual condition of the entire ancient Israeli people. The Jews departed from God, forgot His commandments, and in large numbers needed repentance. Christ, as it were, makes it clear that the entire Jewish people must make the transition to a new moral state.
- The waters of the Jordan, figuratively cleansing the vices of the people immersed in them, carried the spiritual impurity of all mankind. The river in which Jesus was baptized is also a symbol of troubled souls. Christ, immersed in water, sanctified and purified them.
- Christ is the sacrifice. The purpose of His ministry on earth is to sacrifice Himself for the sins of mankind. According to Jewish tradition, the sacrificial animal before the liturgical ritual must undergo ablution.
Where did the name "Jordan" come from
According to conventional wisdom, the river where Jesus was baptized has a Jewish name. There is no consensus on this issue in the scientific community.
- The most logical was to assume the Semitic origin of the toponym. In this case, the Jordan comes from the Hebrew word "Yered" ("coming down," "falling"), and the name of the source Dan is the name of one of the 12 tribes of ancient Israel.
- There is a version of the Indo-European origin of the word. From ancient times, Indo-Iranians, the ancestors of the Philistines, lived in these Middle Eastern territories. The Indo-European root danu means “moisture”, “water”, “river”.
- The Russian religious philosopher Dmitry Sergeyevich Merezhkovsky in Homer's Odyssey saw lines talking about a certain tribe of Kidons who lived off the coast of Yardan. He concluded that the river of baptism of Jesus was named Jordan by immigrants from Crete.
The Sacred Waters of Jordan
Already 1000 years before our era, the waters of the Jordan River were considered sacred. Chroniclers have preserved a lot of evidence that leprosy patients were healed after bathing in the river. Other zealots descended into the water in the burial shrouds. Cuts of tissue were stored until the day of death, believing that this would help to resurrect.
After the baptism of Jesus, the river began to be considered a great shrine without additional rituals. The early Christians used water, considering it miraculous and possessing healing properties. When Christianity became the state religion in Byzantium, believers were given the opportunity to freely move around the empire. The river of Christ's baptism became a longed-for goal for pilgrims.
Many pilgrims rushed to the shores of the Jordan, not only to worship the sacred places. In addition to reverent veneration, superstitions appeared. Patients began to be immersed in the waters of the river in anticipation of the miracle of healing and old age of people with faith in rejuvenation. They began to use water for sprinkling farmland, hoping that this would bring a bountiful harvest. The owners of the ships gathered large vessels of water, trying to prevent a shipwreck and arrange a safe voyage.
Jordan these days
The flow of pilgrims does not stop today. According to ancient evidence, the place on the banks of the Jordan, where John the Baptist performed his mission, is located on the territory of modern Israel. The river of Christ's baptism in this area flows through the Palestinian Authority and access to it after the 1967 war is impossible.
Meeting the wishes of Christians, the Israeli government allocated a small section of the coast at the exit of the Jordan from the Sea of ​​Galilee (Sea of ​​Galilee ). With the participation of the Ministry of Tourism, a whole complex of structures was built. This pilgrimage center is not considered a historical place of gospel events, but for many believers from around the world it is the only opportunity to plunge into the sacred waters.
Miracles for the holiday of Epiphany
On the Feast of the Epiphany on January 19, the Orthodox Jerusalem Patriarch performs a festive prayer and the great consecration of water. The culmination of this service is the triple immersion of the cross in water. Many present testify to an annually repeated miracle. At the time of the immersion of the cross, the river of the baptism of Jesus stops its running, and the waters begin to move in the opposite direction. This phenomenon is captured by many witnesses on video. The Jordan has a rather strong current, and it is not possible to explain this phenomenon by a natural factor. Believers believe that in this way God manifests his strength.
The true place of the baptism of the Savior
If the question in which river Jesus was baptized is already considered resolved, then one can argue with determining the place of the event itself. Over twenty centuries, the riverbed has changed more than once, the states and peoples that existed in biblical times have sunk into oblivion.
In the Jordanian city of Madaba, an ancient temple from the heyday of the Byzantine Empire was preserved. The Church of St. George the Victorious was built in the middle of the VI century. Its floor is decorated with a mosaic geographic map of Palestine. The surviving fragment of this document is 15 by 6 meters. Among other things, the map shows in great detail the place of the baptism of the Savior. This led scientists to find archaeological evidence of gospel events.
On the territory of Jordan, not far from the place where the river flows into the Dead Sea, in 1996, forty meters east of the modern channel, a group of archaeologists discovered the true place of the Savior's baptism. For almost a year now, on the Israeli side, the river of Christ's baptism in this place has been accessible to pilgrims. Everyone can get to the water and take a bath or dive.
The river of baptism of Rus
Prince Kiev of Kiev decided to make Orthodox Christianity the official religion. In historiography, both ecclesiastical and secular, sanctifying these events, it is customary to mention a survey of emissaries of different religions arranged by Prince Vladimir. The Greek preacher was the most convincing. In 988, the baptism of Rus took place . The Dnieper River became the Jordan of the state of Kiev.
Vladimir himself was baptized in the Greek colony of Crimea - the city of Khersones. Upon arrival in Kiev, he commanded his entire court to be baptized. After that, in fear of being ranked as personal enemies, he made the baptism of Russia. In which river the mass mystery will take place, no doubt arose. A wooden statue of the most revered pagan god Perun was cast down into the river, and the people of Kiev were assembled on the banks of the Dnieper and its tributary Pochayna. The clergy who arrived with Vladimir from Khersones performed the sacrament, and a new era of our state began.