RENEWAL AND LIFE
"Perhaps our artist could make a triptych, three panels hinged together with three different paintings on them -- one of the Jordan before Jesus enters the water, looking like a normal river; one of the Jordan with Jesus being baptized in it, the river dark to signify his death and burial; the final a painting of the Jordan as Jesus emerges from the water, the dove on his shoulder, the sky opened up with the Father's voice -- this time the river is gold to symbolize Christ's victory over death and therefore the believer's victory also. For on the eve of the Feast of Theophany the priest prays, 'Thou hast descended into the waters and hast given light to all things, that they may glorify Thee, O Savior, the Enlightenment of our souls.'
"The Jordan is a God symbol and a Christ symbol, as potent in its own way as the cross or the manger or the empty tomb. The Jordan is also a symbol of new life from baptism, of healing, and also of crossing over to a new land and a new commitment to God. In baptism, the idea is one of passing from death to life through the death and resurrection of Jesus. A healing or cleansing is like coming back to life, and the life you have come back to live in God is much different from the one you left. A crossing over is moving from what was to what will be, from the past to the future, with that future securely in the hands of God.
"So the Jordan is really a river of renewal and a river of life -- and God life at that."
~Murray Andrew Pura, Streams
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