Finding Jesus in Israel by Buck Storm

Author:Buck Storm
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Worthy Publishing
Published: 2018-05-14T04:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 17

Down to the River

Drive a few miles south of the spot the Jordan River exits the Sea of Galilee and take a right. Follow the line of buses down and into the parking lot. You’ll find a nice place to visit. A place called Yardenit. They have a huge gift shop there. Good deals if you’re in the market for jewelry or anything made out of olive wood. When you’re done, pass on through the back door, and you’ll find yourself standing on the bank of the Jordan. It’s a beautiful, picturesque spot. Songs fill the air. Metal-railed, curved walkways lead down to the river, and several sets of stairs continue on to concrete platforms in the water itself. Each walkway, staircase, and platform filled with white-robed pilgrims over the moon for the chance to be baptized in the same river where Jesus and John the Baptist took the biblical dip.

For a fee, you can rent or even buy your own white robe. (White robes are mandatory if you’re going into the water.) For a little more you can buy a DVD of your baptismal experience. And you’ll always remember the fish nibbling your toes. They’re very aggressive, angry little fish. I suspect the Jordan River fish are not saved.

I know I sound facetious. I might be a little. But the truth is, no matter where a believer’s baptism happens, it’s a special experience. I count it a high honor to have been asked to baptize friends and travelers at Yardenit.

We broke the rules during one visit. I was in the middle of baptizing a few people when a woman who had originally opted not to take the plunge changed her mind and asked me if it was too late. “Of course not,” I told her. The next thing I knew, she’d taken a flying leap and landed in the water—clothes, shoes, and all. I don’t think we were too popular with the staff, but no one said anything, and the woman glowed, dripping wet, the whole two-hour bus ride back to the hotel.

I saw at least one website that tells you Yardenit is the actual spot of Jesus’s baptism. You don’t have to be a Bible scholar or a geographer to see they’re stretching the truth on that one by about a hundred kilometers. A cursory reading of John’s Gospel will tell you that.

We were in the Galilee region about to head south when Big Jim mentioned that Linda, a friend traveling with us, wanted to get baptized in the Jordan.

“Well, there are a couple different options,” I said.

“What are they and what’s the difference between them?”

“One is pretty, peaceful, and clean. They have a huge gift shop, and everyone gets baptized in white robes. It’s very ‘O Brother, Where Art Thou.’”

“Okay. What’s the other?”

“The other is the more traditional location. If not the exact spot where John baptized Jesus, then definitely close. It’s not pretty. It’s in the desert. In the West Bank, actually. They closed the area to the public after the Six-Day War in 1967, but it’s been reopened since 2011.

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