What happened at the Jordan River in the Bible?

The Jordan is not a grand river by world standards. It gathers from springs at the foot of Mount Hermon, runs through the Sea of Galilee, and then winds south through a deep valley to the Dead Sea, the lowest place on land. The distance in a straight line is little more than a hundred kilometers, but the river loops back and forth so much that its course is more than twice that long. Its name means something like the one who goes down, and it drops steadily the whole way.

In the Bible the Jordan is above all a boundary. On one side lay the wilderness and the long wandering; on the other, the land God had promised. Crossing it meant leaving one life and entering another, which is why the river carries so much meaning in Scripture, in Christian baptism and in the songs of believers who have pictured death as crossing over Jordan.

Israel came to the Jordan at harvest time, when it was overflowing its banks. As soon as the priests carrying the ark stepped into the edge of the water, the flow upstream stood still and the people crossed on dry ground opposite Jericho.

Joshua had twelve stones taken from the riverbed and set up as a memorial, so that when children asked what they meant, parents could tell the story (Joshua 4:1).

The river returns in the lives of the prophets. Elijah struck the water with his rolled-up cloak and it parted for him and Elisha; after Elijah was taken up, Elisha picked up the same cloak, struck the water and crossed back alone (2 Kings 2:8, 2 Kings 2:13). Naaman, an army commander from Aram, came to Elisha with leprosy and was told to wash seven times in the Jordan. He was offended by so plain a remedy, but when he finally obeyed, his skin became like a child's (2 Kings 5:14).

Centuries later John the Baptist preached repentance in the wilderness and baptized crowds in the Jordan as they confessed their sins (Mark 1:4). Jesus came from Nazareth and asked to be baptized too. As he came up out of the water, the Spirit descended on him like a dove and the Father's voice named him his beloved Son (Mark 1:9, Matthew 3:13). John's Gospel places John's work at Bethany beyond the Jordan (John 1:28), and Jesus later returned to that place for a time (John 10:40).

No one can point to the exact spot where Israel crossed or where Jesus was baptized. The river has shifted its bed many times over the centuries, and the Gospels give only a general location. What we do have is a very old Christian memory of the place, and two sites facing each other across the lower Jordan, a few kilometers north of the Dead Sea and east of Jericho, that both honor it.

On the east bank, in Jordan, is Al-Maghtas, identified with Bethany beyond the Jordan. Excavations led by the Jordanian Department of Antiquities from the late 1990s uncovered the remains of Byzantine churches, baptismal pools, a monastery and pilgrim facilities around a spring-fed wadi and a hill associated with Elijah. UNESCO listed it as a World Heritage Site in 2015. On the west bank is Qasr al-Yahud, near Jericho, where a Greek Orthodox monastery of John the Baptist stands and pilgrims have long gone down into the water; it reopened to regular visits in 2011.

Pilgrim accounts from the fourth to sixth centuries and the sixth-century Madaba mosaic map show that Christians were venerating this stretch of the river very early. That is strong evidence for an ancient tradition, though not proof of the precise spot. Further north, near the Sea of Galilee, Yardenit is a modern baptism site chosen for access, not for any historical claim. Today much of the river's water is diverted upstream, so the lower Jordan is far narrower than it was in biblical times.

At the Jordan, God's people had to step into the water before it parted. Faith often works that way: the way opens as we obey, not before. And the twelve stones remind us to tell our children what God has done, so that grace becomes memory and memory becomes faith.

Naaman's story warns against despising a humble remedy. He wanted something impressive; he was healed by doing something simple. The gospel is like that too.

Most of all, the Jordan is where Jesus stood in line with sinners, though he had no sin to confess, and was named the beloved Son. Christian baptism draws its meaning from his: a crossing out of an old life and into a new one, in which those who belong to him hear that they, too, are loved.