On the way out of Petra, we stopped to see one of the natural wonders of the region, Mose's Spring. It is and has been the major water source for Petra for hundreds, perhaps even thousands of years. It still flows strong and clear from nearly the top of the mountain. The esteem in which it is held is evidenced by the edifice that houses it. Everyone had to take a drink, of course. The local legend is that Moses caused the spring to flow, so up to this point we were still on the trail of Moses and the wandering Israelites. That was soon to change.
Next stop was the Machaerus Fortress which is the traditional site for the beheading of John the Baptist. I asked our instructor and guide how they knew that this was the site, since it is not mentioned in the Bible. His answer was predictable. When the Byzantines arrived in the Holy Land in the fifth century, the local Christians told them that this was the site. This is a fairly common explanation for a site's authenticity and one that you can accept, or you can just keep asking. There never seems to be any other.
It seems strange to me that anyone would chose to build a fortress/palace in such a remote location. Not that it did not hold some beauty of its own. High above the Dead Sea, with probably a view of Masada, another remote, Dead Sea retreat of the Herod family, on the horizon, it could certainly provide a respite for a weary monarch. It took the bus long enough to get there, but trying to imagine a caravan from Jerusalem, or some other inhabited place, with a royal entourage and all its supplies and luxuries, is impossible to conceive. It must have taken weeks even to find the place! I guess they were less hurried than we are, or they were a lot more comfortable with accepting their limitations. Some of the many caves in the mountain face are believed to held prisoners, but the actual one that held John the Baptist has eluded detections, so far. Again, there was an hour long climb to the ruins, and incredibly, in this instance, there is a steep climb both ways as one has to cross a valley to reach the ascent. So, its down and then up, up, up both ways. It never seems so far down, until one has to return and climb up.
Next stop was the outskirts of Madaba, where we had lunch at a restaurant which is famous and attracts customers from miles around. It is owned by a Christian family who have been its proprietors since the Ottoman empire, for some 150 years. The food was excellent, but I have yet to have a substandard meal anywhere since my arrival. What set this place apart was the ambiance of the old court yard, and a particularly talkative parrot.
Madaba proper was our next destination. Its church, Saint George's Orthodox Church, has one of the most famous mosaics in the middle east. It is a map of the Holy Land in the fifth century, and is directly responsible for opening up serious archaeological inquiry into that era of Holy Land history. It is, of course, incomplete because subsequent conquerors leveled, rebuilt, leveled again, rebuilt again, and leveled again and again the original church. It is a miracle that any of it survived. There is an interesting history of how it was found. The Christians had left Madaba many years earlier, (got tired of rebuilding, I suspect), but under the more tolerant Ottomans, made a request to return to Madaba and rebuild their church. Since it was outside of the existing town, and posed no discernible threat to the Moslem majority, they were given the site of the ancient church on which to rebuild. That was in 1909. It was in searching for a stable foundation that the discovery of the mosaic was made, and now it is one of the major draws for the entire city. In fact the city now surrounds it. Not only that, but it has revitalized the local mosaic industry. There are mosaic shops everywhere, and several schools which teach the techniques of mosaic production, a beautiful but very, very expensive way to produce art.
Our stay in Madaba had one interesting twist. In the evening, after an Anglican priest from Amman had given us a briefing on the state of Christianity in Jordan, we had plenty of time to wander around the streets. Suddenly, there was great hubbub, with horns blaring, people leaning out of windows and cars waving flags. On the street in front of me, between the mosaic shops and my hotel, a car pulled into an intersection, threw open its doors, discharged about a half dozen young men, who promptly fired up the radio to excessively noisy, and began to dance and chant in the street. They were quickly joined by a hundred more young men (no women), while hundreds of cars drove up and down the main street, honking their horns and waving flags as well. For those of us who had no idea of what was going on, it was a little scary! Someone made note of the fact that the date was September 11, and that didn't help our nervousness. However, one of the shopkeepers overheard the comment, and reassured us, emphatically, that what was going on had nothing to do with 9/11. Jordan had just won a big soccer match against Australia in Amman, and this was the local celebration. Think, da Bears win da Super Bowl, but with no one drinking. The party went on half the night, but it was all fun and excitement and there were no bad side effects except for those who were trying to get through town on the way to somewhere else or those trying to get a decent night's sleep. Incidentally, listening to the Jordanian priest describe their problems and issues, was kind of familiar. One would have thought he was talking about Saint Anne's, Morrison: Aging populations, difficultly attracting and holding young people, diminishing resources to carry out the church's social ministry. Another concern is the emigration of their people to better and safer countries. Thanks be to God, our emigration situation is seasonal and not permanent, so far.
Next morning, we were back with Moses on our way to Mount Nebo. In case you've forgotten your Deuteronomy, Mount Nebo was vantage point from which Moses was
permitted to see the promised land which he was forbidden to enter, because of a fit of pique earlier in the trip. We were told that on a clear day, one could, in fact, see all the parts of the promised land. The tradition holds that Moses died on Mount Nebo, and scripture testifies that no one knows where his grave is. So, the site to which everyone goes to pay homage to Moses is in a Franciscan Monastery which holds the "Moses Memorial." That still attracts a huge number of people, Christian and Moslem. The good news was, we had arrived at a place where the bus did the climbing, and ours was a fairly long, but pretty easy walk. Once again, the Holy Land haze obscured the view. So we were left to imagine what Moses saw. Biblical joke of the day: "Did Moses ever set foot in the promised land?" "Yes, but only for several minutes during the Transfiguration."
We had lunch at a very toney Hotel situated on the Dead Sea. The Dead Sea area has become a very popular resort with dozens of very expensive hotels to cater to those seeking warmth and "healing" in the Dead Sea waters, but more especially in its mud, which is supposed to hold miraculous powers of healing. The whole area warrants the title international spa, I think. Another sumptuous buffet, and we were off to one of the most compelling sites we've yet visited, the site believed to be the location where John the Baptist was baptizing and Jesus came to be baptized. There is a very developed site on the Israeli side of the Jordan, but the Jordanian side is much more natural, and has a better claim to authenticity due to the abundance of ancient ruins that attest to the importance of the location in ancient times. The most fascinating one is an artificial extension of the Jordan River which adjoins the ruins of an ancient Byzantine church. On one of the foundation rocks there is a cross inscribed which was meant to designate the actual site of Christ's baptism. Our chaplain took the opportunity to have us all renew our own baptismal vows, which was both very meaningful and extraordinarily appropriate considering the place, and some went down to the river to claim some water to take home. My personal feeling is that the water Christ was baptized in disappeared into the Dead Sea years ago, and there is no shortage of polluted water in northwestern Illinois. So, I did not participate in that exercise.
There are several impressions which come from that day. One of the first is how very small and narrow the Jordan River really is. To be sure, a great deal of its water, today, is diverted for agricultural purposes, but records indicated that it was never a rival for the Mississippi, maybe the Peccatonica. Today, it looks like what we would not hesitate to call a creek. Nevertheless, it moves a great deal of water and flows very swiftly as it drops 4000 feet in a matter of about 50 miles. Ancillary to that observation, the respect which the site receives is attested to by the absence of border guards and barriers placed in the way of getting there. No other place, and I mean no other place along the Israel/Jordanian border has such unimpeded access, and such a notable lack of military supervision or even presence. It makes one just a little hopeful that peace and cooperation is still possible, some day.
The less serious observation pertains to what we witnessed taking place on the Israeli side of the Jordan, busloads of people making their way to the very well developed site. Some jumped in, some took pictures, a few seemed to be praying. Mostly, it seemed like a quick tourist's stop and then a rush back to the bus. I'm glad we were on the other side, and had plenty of time to take in as much as we could reasonably absorb and carry away for future spiritual ruminations.
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