The Jordan River

The Jordan is the river that runs down the length of Israel into the Dead Sea, and in the Bible it is a river of thresholds. Israel crossed it on dry ground to enter the promised land; Elijah and Elisha parted its waters; and Naaman the leper was cleansed by dipping in it seven times. To cross the Jordan was to pass from wilderness into promise.

It was in the Jordan that John baptized, and there that Jesus came to be baptized to fulfil all righteousness, the heavens opening and the Spirit descending like a dove. The river became, in Christian imagination, a picture of the passage through death into the promised land of heaven — which is why so many hymns sing of crossing over Jordan at the last.