Yesterday was a very special day. We left our hotel on the Sea of Galilee at 8:30 a.m. and made our way to the the Southern end of the lake, where the Galilee spills into the Jordan River. At this location of the Jordan River, an area has been established for baptisms. In fact, while Melinda and I were visiting Israel in 2005, we both were re-baptized in the Jordan River (this was extremely powerful for me because it served as a statement that I had recommitted myself to serving Jesus Christ in a new, fresh, and better way).
As I said earlier, yesterday was very special – why? Because I had the opportunity to re-baptize all three of my children! I know that I keep saying it in my blogs, but this was extremely powerful and meaningful! My kids had committed themselves to following Jesus and had been baptized earlier in their lives, but they wanted to re-commit themselves where Jesus Himself had been baptized. How often does a dad get to make a significant life statement with his children? This was one of those moments that Amanda, Drew, and Shannon will remember for the rest of their lives! I think I may have felt the same emotion that God felt when Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River, and He said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with Him I am well pleased” (Matthew 3:17). All I can say is praise God for this opportunity!
As a side note, the Jordan River has little fish that really enjoy nibbling on manly leg hair. My leg hair must have been like honey to them because they were nibbling away at me! It was extremely hard for me to keep my composure while I was baptizing with these little fish feasting on my legs!
We left the baptismal area and headed south toward Jerusalem On the way, we stopped at a site that Melinda and I had not seen before – Bet She’an. This was an interesting site where both the Greeks and the Romans had established cities here at different times. This site was amazing because virtually the entire city had been preserved. The most interesting part of the this site was the preserved bathrooms from the Roman era – a man or woman (they did not have separate bathrooms) could sit between two stones to do their business and a sophisticated sewer system would take it away – very wild!
From Bet She’an we continued our journey to Jerusalem. When we entered Jerusalem, we went immediately to the Mount of Olives. Our guide gave us a briefing on the Mount of Olives and the old city of Jerusalem. For those of you who have not been to Jerusalem, the old city is only a portion of Jerusalem – it is surrounded by a wall and it has four quadrants, the Christian quarter, the Jewish quarter, Armenian quarter, and the Muslim (or Arab) quarter. The main feature of the old city is the Temple Mount – Solomon built the first Temple in 957BC (it only existed for a few decades), Herod the Great re-built the Temple in a greater form in 20BC , and Herod’s Temple was destroyed by the Roman’s in 70AD. The Dome of the Rock (a Muslim mosque), which is what we see on the Temple Mount today, was erected by the Muslim ruler Abd el-Malik in 688-691AD. This shrine was covered by a lead dome from 691 until it was replaced with a gold-colored covering in 1965. Because of rust, the anodized aluminum cover was again replaced in 1993 with a gold covering.
From the Mount of Olives, we went to the Garden of Gethsemane. We had some quite time here to visit the church on this site and to consider what Jesus was going through while He was praying just prior to Judas betraying Him. As I walked around on my own, I couldn’t help but think about the movie – The Passion of the Christ (Mel Gibson’s epic movie) – when Jesus was praying so desperately, His sweat was like blood.
With this, our day ended. What a phenomenal day!