The River Of Jordan

WE MIGHT REMEMBER THE LINE from Joan Baez' song: "All My Trials, Lord," ~ The River of Jordan is muddy and cold, it chills the body but not the soul.  Here's a picture of the River Jordan. The lush green bank and the river's turn makes the photo attractive, but the river itself  (more like a stream) is disappointing. 

The Jordan is a shallow river, 156 miles long. It only reaches any real height during the months of January to March. Climatologists and even the locals acknowledge that it shrinking due to climate change and that so much of the water is drawn off along its route for irrigation purposes. For a very long time, perhaps the better part of its history, sad to say, the river has been polluted by raw human sewage. Still wondrously, it remains home to over 500 species of birds. That last bit was God's wonderfully bright idea!

Today most of the river is off limits to the public, the rest is open only to the military in that bloodied part of the world torn up by terrible conflict, tension, violence and death. Not a good advertisement for religion, I'm afraid. 

The Jordan of Jesus' Baptism becomes an earth-symbol then. It's into such a world as this the Christmas carol says that God has entered in Christ. Even the muddy water becomes symbolic. Christ didn't step down into Vitamin Water, filtered water, softened, chlorinated, ionized, treated, infused, flavored, glacier-melt water - but the muddy water of the twisted Jordan.

Hearing the news coming out of the New Jersey Governor's office gives us a window into how muddy and twisted the world can be. Or the murky church-world of locked drawers and confidential files that allowed so much sex abuse to continue, or the dark underworld of selling girls for sex at the football games our country adores. Or the organized crime-world Pope Francis knows about and wants the Church to stay clear of. God has come into that world.

God comes into the created world to reclaim it for God and begins by stepping down into and reclaiming the water - and we're made of water! God is reclaiming us.

Ribboned in the waters of the twisted Jordan,
you left the imprint of your feet
along the mud-banks.

Take us by the hand now,
O Christ our God,
gently escort us out
of our polluted minds
our militarized hearts,
that we would join you in the freshness
of your renewing visitation.

Intercessions for the Feast of the Lord's Baptism

The Jordan River entering the Sea of Galilee

Pope Francis has announced that he will make a pilgrimage to the Middle East this Spring./ We ask the blessings of safety as he travels/ and for his presence and message to advance the most recent initiatives for peace in the land where Jesus was born and baptized/ We pray to the Lord.

During that trip to the Holy Land/ Pope Francis will meet with Bartholomew, the Patriarch of Constantinople./ We ask for that meeting to be received joyfully by the Christians of East and West,/ and for the healing of ancient divisions - a new unity of love./ We pray to the Lord.

In  his Jordan River Baptism,/ Jesus stepped down into the water/ and God began to reclaim and sanctify anew all of creation./ We ask to be good stewards of the earth-paradise given to us/ and for a new reverence for the essential gift of water./ We pray to the Lord.

In his Baptism/ Jesus joined sinful humanity at the river bank./ We pray for our consciousness to be raised,/ so to become aware of the greater sins of the Church,/ the nation and the world./ And for our personal transformation away from entitlement,/ waste and greed./ We pray to the Lord.

We stand in the prayer of friendship with the many who are sick,/ cold,/ hungry,/ alienated or afraid./ We ask for the blessing of consolation/ found in being lifted up and helped./ We pray to the Lord.

And finally we remember the dead/ asking for them the forgiveness of sins/ and entrance into God's land of light,/ healing and wholeness./ We pray to the Lord.

Merton's Epiphany

Portrait of Thomas Merton

The word epiphany means manifestation. The expression "I had an epiphany," means I had a great and important realization or enlightenment. The Feast of the Epiphany links three manifestations of divinity in Christ: The magi following the star to Bethlehem, the Baptism of the Lord in the Jordan River and the first of Jesus' signs at the Wedding at Cana. The epiphany is the realization of who this is who is being shown to us.

We mustn't confuse a real epiphany with serendipitous events or coincidences that might even appear to be wondrous: "I was late and got a parking space just when I was starting to feel desperate." "It rained all week and then the sun came out for the kids' wedding day." "I asked for a sign and a white dove landed on the railing by my door." 

Epiphanies are God-showings for the expansion of our hearts, the changing of our minds, the birthing of something new in us, a personal transformation that may take my breath away.

The monk-author, Thomas Merton writes of having a profound religious experience on the sidewalk, the likes of which he never had in the monastery. This is an epiphany!

In Louisville, at the corner of Fourth and Walnut, in the center of the shopping district, I was suddenly overwhelmed with the realization that I loved all those people, that they were mine and I theirs, that we could not be alien to one another even though we were total strangers. It is a glorious destiny to be a member of the human race...there is no way of telling people that they are all walking around shining like the sun.

I suddenly saw the secret beauty of their hearts, the depths of their hearts where neither sin nor desire nor self-knowledge can reach, the core of their reality, the person that each one is in God's eyes. If only they could all see themselves as they really are. If only we could see each other that way all of the time. There would be no more war, no more hatred, no more cruelty, no more greed.

         Conjectures of a Guilty Bystander, New York: Doubleday 1966

We need a make-no-mistake-about it global epiphany!