Palestine of Jesus - III

Now that a few days and a few excursions have gone by, it might be a good time to say something about my fellow pilgrims, here at Saint George's College.  Diversity is definitely not a problem!  There are six of us from the U.S., one from Canada, thirteen from New Zealand of which ten are Moari, two from Tonga, one from Figi, and, of course, six Brits.  We range in age from fifteen to eighty-one, and seem to get on quite well.  The New Zealanders, in particular, are great fun.  They came armed with guitars and ukuleles with which they accompany their singing (hymn and secular) during long and not very interesting bus rides.

We've had a couple of those in the last few days.  Yesterday we travelled to Jericho to the Israeli site for the Baptism of Christ.  Having covered his annunciation and birth, we were ready to move on to the beginning of his ministry.   That, of course, requires a visit to the baptism site.  The traditional and probably authentic site is in Jordan, and I had an opportunity to visit it and explore the deeper traditions related to it when I was here two years ago.  But, the Jordan is pretty narrow, and getting to Jordan (the kingdom) is pretty complicated, and the Isralis have created a super facility for Christian pilgrims to visit as the Baptism site (more of less), so it was the one we went to renew our baptismal vows.  Several people seemed the think that the renewal service was pretty special.  I told them that at Saint Anne's we renew baptismal vows four time each year.  They were amazed!  It's weird how few people are acquainted with the rather explicit rubrics in the Prayer Book.  Well enough of that.

The site was pretty crowded as it always is, and I was more facinated by what was going on around me.  There was a particularly large and enthusiastic group of Ukranians who were really into it.  The Ukranianss seem to be everywhere.  But, what caught my eye was the actual baptism of an infant taking place on the Jordan side. 

The couple in white are holding what appears to be a little girl, and the whole family has turned out for the occasion.  There was a Japanese group doing baptisms right next to us, and just before we left, andother huge groups of Ukranians showed up, having donned "tourist" baptismal gowns (45 shelkels) and were preparing to take the plunge just as we were leaving.

 

After his baptism, Jesus was "driven out" into the wilderness to be tempted by Satan.  So, our next stop was a view of the Orthodow Monestary which commemorates the first temptation, turning stones in to bread.  It is high up a rather sheer mountain, perched among many caves which could certainly have served as a dwelling place for forty days and nights, if you brought your own food and water, that is.

No trip to Jericho would be compolete with out a stop at the Zacheaus sycamore, and so, even though it was out of out chronological sequence we stopped there to ponder how a small man (and a very small man was he) could shinny up such a tall tree without a ladder.  Perhaps something was omitted from the biblical narrative.

We finished off the day with a demonstration of Palestinian cooking given by our great chef, Joseph Arbeed.  He promised to give us some of his reciepts so that we can use them back home to help raise money for the Diocese of Jerusalem.  I might add that the Diocese of Jerusalem is a very worthy cause.  It operates more institutions, schools, hospitals, refugee ministries, job training facilities, than it has churches.  It is hard to imagine how Bishop Suhiel and his small staff do it.  Anyway, Joseph is giving us a means to do some charity work as well as indulge our curious culinary interests.

Today was Masada, the Herodian palace/fortress on the Dead Sea, where the last resisters to the Roman conquest on 68 A.D. made their last stand, and committed mass suicide rather than be captured by the Romans.  It is an amazing place, but difficult to photograph in any meaningful way.  I've learned through experience that ruins pretty much all look the same, and at this point, ruins are all that there is available to photograph.  I will incude one picture of the impressive mountain plateau on which Herod built his palace.  It is hard to imagine the manpower and resources that it must have taken to satisfy the paranoid leanings and the taste for luxury which characterized Herod's personality.  It had Roman-style baths and swimming pools, all supplied by a water system that could fulfill the needs of the royal entorage and military garison from the two inches of rain that fall in the regeion each year.  Amazing!  One of the things I've observed in my time in the Middle East is that these desert dwellers are far more sophisticated about water use and conservation that any of us "modern" Westerners ever thought of being.

Next stop was Qumran, the site of the community/monestary that produced the Dead Sea Scrolls.  Again, it is a desolate place with no fresh water, but they tooo had developed an elabortate system to supply their needs, which were prodigious.  The Essene community which lived there were obsessed with the idea of ritual purity.  they were required to bath twice a day!  They would have needed a lot of water and somehow they got it, because they were active there on that site for over 150 years.  A Beduin boy, looking for a goat, found the first of the scrolls in a cave, but the major find came from cave #4 (there were eleven, altogether).

What could top off a day in the hot desert better than a float in the Dead Sea?  And so that was the way the day ended.  The atached picture shows the party had by those who did not go into the chemical bath.  They made the better choice!

Tomorrow morning early, it's off to the Galilee for three days, back on the trail of Jesus, after a desert diversion which was fun but lacked much educational focus and certainly had nothing at all to do with the Palestine of Jesus.  I'm not going to try to blog during that sojourn.  The wifi is tricky enough here, I don't feel like trying to negotiate the wifi in the lobby of a guesthouse at the Mount of the Beatitudes.  I'll just have to catch you up when I return onTuesday night.

I'd like to think that I have figured out how to get these blogs published with pictures, in place where I put them as I write.  We'll see!

Vale.