Matthew 3:13 Meaning Then Jesus Came From Galilee

The awakening self descends toward the dividing line inside a person to be immersed and turned. Jordan means the descender, the current that flows down and marks the boundary between one condition and another, and to come to it is to bring the whole self to the place where the old nature is put under and something new rises. The lower washing prepares for the higher; the self comes down to the water first, before the fire and the Spirit.

Galilee, the circuit of the ordinary daily rounds, is left behind so the self can reach the crossing-place within. The awakening life moves toward the inner boundary where it will be plunged and changed.

Jordan: the descending inner current that divides one condition of the self from the next, the crossing-place of change Galilee: the circuit of ordinary daily life a person leaves behind to reach the inner boundary Water: the lower cleansing that puts the old nature under before the higher change comes

When the true self steps down into the Jordan, it is a willing plunge into the deep, the necessary crossing into the place where real growth begins.

The two men at the source of life, one pointing beyond himself and one stepping into the water, echo an old pairing found in ancient stories, from Gilgamesh and Enkidu to the twin brothers of Greek myth: one mortal, one reaching toward the eternal, held together in a charged tension at the threshold. The water here is far more than a river. It is the first, original substance in which the inner person is made new, the motherly source from which the holy rises up changed.