2nd Monday

Well, my internet connection tonight is pretty poor as a whole. I tried it out earlier because I had heard it was bad, and the person who told me was right. It’s extremely slow and I can only get to half of my e-mail. I suspect the whole hotel here in Petra is sharing one slow connection. I guess I’ll try and post this from Jerusalem on Wednesday night.

A lot of driving today. We started the day in Ammon(sp?), Jordan with a trip to the local antiquities museum.

Just down the road from there is the site where it is thought that Uriah the Hittite, Batheshba’s first husband, was killed in the siege of the city following King David’s order. It was amazing to look out over the valley and imagine the battle (2 Samuel 11:1ff). More Roman ruins in the form of an ancient church and a neighborhood and a very wealthy man’s house were across the street.

From there we traveled to the Jordan River to the site where Jesus was baptized. The desert approaching the Jordan on the path we traveled was certainly the most desolate place I have ever seen. It makes the West Texas desert landscape look like a plush garden. Imagining the Israelites wandering around through that type of desert gives an awe of how rugged they had to be and how gracious God’s provision must have been.

The Jordan isn’t a river on the scale of the Mississippi. At maybe 30-40 feet across one could very easily walk across to the Israeli side. However, the armed Jordanian guards, while not menacing served as more than enough deterrent. Our leader, Dr. Jim Jackson, talked about how John’s baptism wasn’t Christian baptism but was a baptism of repentance which was really quite common in the Jewish community which expected you to be baptized every time you sinned. Jesus’ participation wasn’t because he needed to repent, note John’s hesitancy to baptize him, but was a matter of doing the right thing for the mission he was undertaking. The scriptures sure seem to bear this out. I’m going to have to do some reflecting on the implications of all that.

Matthew 4:1 records that after his baptism Jesus was driven out into the desert. I really wish I could load up some pictures today of the utter lifelessness just beyond the river valley. I saw it just a few hours ago and am still having trouble believing it.

After the Jordan our lunch plans took us to the lowest point on earth – the Dead Sea. It’s roughly 1300 feet below sea level and has a salt concentration that is about four times that of the Gulf of Mexico and other ocean water. We didn’t float in it today – that’s for later.

We moved on to Mount Nebo/Mount Pisgah where Moses was allowed to look out onto the promised land the Israelites were about to enter. He died on that mountain having led the Israelites for 40 years through the desert without going into the land itself. See Deuteronomy 34:1-12 for the story of his death and Numbers 20:1-13 for the reason he wasn’t allowed to enter. Reflecting on his presence there and the deaths we from time to time experience over things we have poured ourselves into but are not allowed to bring to full completion for one reason or another was powerful and profound.

Four hours of bus travel later (ughhh!) we arrived in Petra.

Tomorrow we are supposed to walk 1.5 miles each way to the historic Petra treasury (the carved rock façade in “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade”). It is also supposed to rain tomorrow. It promises to be interesting.