Praying the Rosary in October: The Luminous Mysteries

October 14, 2016

By The Great Adventure

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The Baptism of Christ

Why did John go to the Jordan River in the desert—to the lowest point on earth—to baptize, and why did so many follow him there?
In the Old Testament, Joshua led the Israelites across the Jordan River, and Jesus is the Joshua of the New Testament. Jesus is the one who will lead the New Israel into the Promise Land, and he begins at the Jordan River where the first Joshua led the Israelites out of bondage. When Jesus and John meet at the Jordan, they are reliving history.

Wearing a garment of camel hair and a leather girdle around his waist, and eating only locusts and wild honey, John the Baptist proclaims, “Prepare the Way of the Lord” (see Is 40:3). To the Israelites of the first century, these words hearkened back to Israel’s days of exile in the desert when God promised through Isaiah that he will console Israel. The testimony of John the Baptist meant Israel’s day of consolation was coming, the prophecies about the Messiah will soon be fulfilled.
With what he is wearing, what he is saying, and where he is saying it, John is playing the role of Elijah. In the first century, it was believed that Elijah will come before the Messiah (Mal 4:5, or NAB 3:24) and restore the tribes of Israel. Elijah went up into heaven in a chariot of fire at the Jordan River dressed the same way.

“I must decrease and he must increase,” John proclaimed, and this is exactly what happened between Elijah and Elisha. After Elijah gives Elisha a double portion of his anointing and ascends to heaven, Elisha performs miracles parallel to those performed by Jesus. He transforms vessels of oil (2 Kgs 4:1-7), he raises a dead child to life (2 Kgs 4:32-34), he multiplies loaves to feed a multitude (2 Kgs 4:38-44), and Naaman is cured of leprosy by dipping himself in the Jordan seven times as Elisha told him (2 Kgs 5). What is also interesting to note is that the Church says the cure of Naaman prefigures of the sacrament of baptism.
And wait, there’s more. In Matthew 3:13-15, Jesus is fulfilling everything and becoming Israel, identifying with Israel completely. Not only is he coming to earth as a baby, but he goes to the lowest point on earth and submits himself to a baptism of repentance.

In Matthew 16-17, the same language is used as at the anointing of Saul (1 Sam 10:6) and David (1 Sam 16:13). This is the language of the anointing of a Jewish king.
We have a lot of convergence in the wilderness. Joshua’s crossing the Jordan, Elijah and Elisha, Isaiah saying God will allure you and speak tenderly to you in the wilderness, the anointing of Jesus as king in complete identity as Israel fulfilling all righteousness, and after his baptism—just as Israel came out of the waters of the Red Sea and wandered forty years in the wilderness—Jesus comes out of the waters of the Jordan to be tempted for forty days in the desert.

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