Wither Thou Goest, I Will Go.

The course description for Easter Fire promises, among other things, an experience of identification with the person of Jesus, and especially in the last days of his life.  To that end, day 3 was a sort of recollection of the beginning of his active ministry.  So, it was off to the Jordan River, to the approximate site of Jesus' baptism by John.  I say approximate because no one can say for sure where this even took place.  The traditional site is in the Kingdom of Jordan, and there are Byzantine ruins there to attest to the longevity of its claim to authenticity.  Travelling from Israel to Jordan is rediculously complicated.  So, the Israeli Army allows people who want to visit the location nearest Jesus' baptism site to traverse their mine field (really! a mine field!) and reach the West Bank of the Jordan River.  It's a very functional place with virtually no religious symbolism at all.  Many, many people come there and are inspired to step into the river and even immerse themselves as a renewal of their own baptism, and there are some who are actually baptized with friends and family and clergy all in evidence.  Being proper Anglicans, we settled for a Renewal of Baptismal Vows, straight out the Prayer Book, and a sprinking with polluted water delivered via an dubiously acquired olive branch.  Completely satisfactory in my book!

Scripture tells us that Jesus was "driven by the Spirit into the desert for 40 days," so, our next stop was at the Mount of the Temptation, a desolate mound at the eastern end of the great Judean desert with many visible caves in which to fast and be tempted.  The entire pile is crowned, of course, with a Greek Monestary into which there is no admittance.  We were however, given the opportunity to experience one of the oldest desert monestaries in the Judean wilderness, The Monestary of Saint Gerasimos, a fourth century hermit/monk who pulled a thorn from a lion's foot and made him a pet, and eventually became the head of a semi-erimitical larva which survives, today.  It is truly an amazing place.  In the middle of the bleakest desert erupts this oasis of flowering beauty, most cordial hospitality and impressive Orthodox worship and piety.  Best part of the day!

This is Saint Gerasimos from my growing collection of icons.

As we were already on the outskirts of Jericho, a stop at the sycamore tree which Zaccheus (sp?) climbed (which is just possibly a survivor from the 19th century, certainly no older), an outdoor lunch which was punctuated by frequent announcements and calls to pray from a nearby minaret, an additional stop at another desert Monestary which we could only observe across a very wide and deep wadi, a trip back to the college, and a decent dinner at the Guest House, completed the memory records of the day.

More so than the "religious" sites, I always find myself slightly awed by Jericho.  Here is the world's oldest continually inhabited city.  Archaeological investigations verify that it was already a sizable city 8,500 years ago, and today, it is one of the agricultural mainstays of Isael.  Since it is next to the Dead Sea, it is also the lowest city on earth, and that affects its climate substantially, dates, bananas and others tropical crops thrive with the intense heat and adequate water supply from both the River Jordan and numerous springs.   If I were planning a course, I'd forget the ersatz religious sites, in preferrence to a better understanding of what is going on archaeologically in this pre-historical place.  By the way, they have found some collapsed walls at Jericho, but the evidence clearly shows that they were collapsed centuries before Joshua and his trumpet blowing gang showed their faces.  Maybe they tried to take credit for something with which they had nothing to do.  Trump's antics are nothing new.