Because of its association with the Baptism of Jesus, the River Jordan is probably the best known river in the world. All three synoptic gospels, Matthew, Mark and Luke, describe this event. Matthew writes that “at that time Jesus arrived from Galilee and came to John at the Jordan to be baptized by him… As soon as Jesus was baptized, He came up out of the water. Then heaven was opened to Him, and He saw the Spirit of God coming down like a dove and alighting on Him. Then a voice said from heaven. “This is my Son, the Beloved, with whom I am well pleased.” (Mat 3:13-16; Mark 1:9-11; Luke 3:21-22).
It is clear that each of the synoptic writers view the Baptism of Jesus as a crucial moment in His life, when He is affirmed by His Father and also committed Himself to a Messianic ministry which would be very different from the prevailing aspirations of many contemporary Jews, because it would involve suffering and ultimately death.
At the end of Matthew’s gospel, Jesus tells His disciples: “Go, then to all peoples everywhere and make them My disciples: baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit and teach them to obey everything I have commanded you. And I will be with you always, to the end of the age.” (Mat 28:19-20). In the early Church, as is clear from Paul’s letter to the Romans, baptism literally meant going down into the waters.
The liberation, freedom from sin and incorporation into the life of God which is effected by the Sacrament of Baptism has captured the imagination of poets, painters and song writers for the past two millennia. Artists such as Michelangelo, Leonardo Da Vinci and others have painted the baptism of Jesus. During the 1960s, many of us danced to the song “Michael, Row the Boat Ashore” sung by Peter, Paul and Mary. The lyrics proclaimed that the “River Jordan is chilly and cold, hallelujah, chills the body and not the soul, hallelujah.”
Whatever about chilling the body, one would not expect that the waters of the Jordan could poison someone and make him/her sick. But that is no longer true. A news item in The Jerusalem Post on July 28, 2010 entitled, “Pollution prevents Jordan River baptisms,” claims that the site where Jesus was baptized is in danger of being declared off limits to pilgrims because the waters are heavily polluted. Qasar al-Yahud is the place on the Jordan where tradition holds that Jesus was baptized. It is located a few kilometers from where the Jordan enters the Dead Sea. It is the third most popular site for Christian pilgrims after the Church of the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem and the Church of the Nativity in Bethlehem. Almost 100,000 visitors, mostly Christians, come to the site each year.
On July 25, 2010, the site was closed to visitors in order to allow the Jordan waters to be properly tested. Recent samples have shown that the water is polluted with high levels of raw sewage, agricultural chemicals from pesticides and fertilizers and hormone-enriched effluent from fish farms in the area. One reason why the waters are so polluted is that more than 98% of the river water is now diverted for irrigation use by Israel, Syria and Jordan.
The Israeli Ministry of Tourism is concerned about the pollution of the Jordan, not for religious reasons, but because the country will lose valuable dollars and euro if the site is no longer open to pilgrims. In fact, in an effort to attract more pilgrims, Israel spent around US $2 million upgrading the site: making it wheelchair accessible, providing shade from searing heat of the sun, building baptismal decks and other facilities.
In the rite of Baptism the prayer of blessing over the baptismal water states that the waters of the Jordan were made holy by the Baptism of Jesus. To date, I have not heard any Christian religious leader making the link between the life-giving reality of pure baptismal water, the polluted state of the Jordan and the need to restore its water quality as soon as possible. Until such connections become routine, the Church’s understanding of and response to the ecological crisis will be seriously lacking. It also raises questions about our sacramental theology and practice. Can polluted water be used to baptize people?
