DAY 4: NEVER PASS UP AN OPPORTUNITY

Then Jesus came from Galilee to the Jordan to be baptized by John.  But John tried to deter him, saying, "I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?"  Jesus replied, "Let it be so now; it is proper for us to do this to fulfill all righteousness" (Matthew 3:13-15).

Helen and I were awake at six.  We bathed and packed our bags and ate another delightful breakfast.  Our first stop that day, Sunday, March 16, was the traditional baptismal site on the Jordan River.  Two of our group were baptised that day.  The Jordan is a muddy river in that location, it made me think of the leprous captain Naaman who was commanded to dip seven times in the Jordan and he protested that the rivers in Syria were much cleaner.  I'm sure he was right, but it is not the cleanness, but the obedience that heals (see II Kings 5:1-19).

We spent a short time shopping, though Helen still spent a lot of money, and we were off to Beit she'an, one of the cities of the Decapolis.  The Decapolis was a group of ten cities dedicated to the promotion and preservation of Greek and Roman culture.  The New Testament tells us that Jesus traveled within their scope of influence.  Beit She'an was the only city of the ten located west of the Jordan River.  This was the city, according to Keren, where Saul and Jonathon's bodies were hung from the city walls.  Beit She'an was, in Greco-Roman times, a metro area of roughly 40,000*, having all the trappings of wealth, theater, hippodromes, baths, saunas and gyms.  It had all the sophistication of Roman culture but was decadent and cruel with ritual prostitution and blood sports.  So it was interesting that we paused for Sunday morning worship within the ruins of Beit She'an.  We sang hymns and prayed.  We had a short message and celebrated the Lord's Supper there too.  I wonder if Beit She'an had ever had a Christian worship service in it?

We were beginning to know our fellow travelers from Oklahoma--we couldn't have picked a better group to travel with.  Most of them were seasoned, sophisticated travelers, but very humble and loving, so we did not feel like the novices that we were.

We ate lunch at Beit She'an.  I ate a piece of pizza and a 20 ounce Coke Zero.  I tell you this because I did not take time to use the men's room before we got back in the bus for the long drive to Jerusalem.  The drive down the Jordan valley was an interesting one, but it would have been much more interesting if I would have followed my traveling policy of never passing up an opportunity to use the restroom.  By the time we reached Mount Scopus for a view of the whole city in which we would be staying for the next 4 nights, I was in absolute agony.  When the bus stopped and we exited the bus, I asked Haim, our driver, if there was a men's room around here, "I need one bad."  He said, "It is not good to keep poisons inside; find a tree."  Haim was a pragmatist in his approach to life.

Our first night in Jerusalem we slept well.

Our Father's Love,
Tom

*The picture is of the theater in Beit She'an.  It's a 4,000 seat theater indicating an approximate drawing population of about 40,000 people.  In 2008 a Jordanian tour guide said the 3,000 seat theater at Jeresh indicated a population of about 30,000 people.  Keren did not agree with that assessment saying the population was way below that.