January 2011 – In some ways there is very little that is impressive about the Holy Land. There are no grand pyramids, no hanging gardens or colossal statues astride a harbor.

Much of what we refer to as the sites of the Holy Land amount to ruins of stone, pieces of shattered pottery or mosaics found beneath an ocean of sand, scrub brush and wind-swept rock.

But like the ocean itself, there is amazing life beneath the unexceptional surface. For generations now, experts have been carefully unearthing the pieces and assembling them again, for they have a story to tell.

And journalists love stories. We love to hear them, write them down and tell them to others.

So in October I found myself in a group of 14 Christian journalists spending eight days in Jordan as guests of the Jordan Tourism Board. We were there to see the pieces and hear the stories they told.

It surprises some people when they hear the words “Holy Land” connected to the nation of Jordan, but much of the biblical story occurred there. More and more people are discovering that fact, as record numbers of Christians from around the world are traveling to Jordan to see it with their own eyes.

Lowest point on earth
The biblical story is one of redemption, and Christians understand that story as having worldwide implications. Certainly some of that tale took place in the ornate and luxurious halls of great powers like ancient Egypt, Persia, Greece and Rome. But it is a peculiar story in that most of it happened in an arid land, much of it desert, in an otherwise unremarkable part of the world.

“What did you go out to see?” Jesus asked the people who had gone out to see the camel-hair-clad prophet, John the Baptist, and hear his fierce and fiery words (Matt. 11:7-8). This is not the kind of man you’ll see in kings’ palaces, dressed in soft clothes.

That is precisely what I thought when I visited some of the Holy Land locations in Jordan. Christianity, as it turned out, would begin near a small stream, an off-shoot of the unimpressive Jordan River.

Jesus was baptized by John “in Bethany beyond the Jordan [River],” where John had been baptizing the penitent of Israel (John 1:28). The site is located just six miles north of the Dead Sea, which at almost 1,400 feet below sea level, makes it the lowest (dry land) place on earth.

“This is no coincidence,” Rustom Mkhjian, an Armenian Christian and director of the site in the modern nation of Jordan, told Dan Wooding of Assist News Service in an interview. “We’ve learned about Jesus being humble …. My belief is that although it is the lowest point on earth, it is the closest to heaven. This is … where Christianity started.”

It is a profound statement. In a sense, Christ ascended out of that water and continued climbing until He reached the coarse beams of the cross, and then climbed even higher, returning to the heavenly realm. Jesus continues to lift to Himself all those who believe on Him, seating them in heavenly places where He dwells in majesty and power (Eph. 2:6).

But it all began at 1,400 feet below sea level, in the lowest place on earth.

There are numerous places in between those moments – between baptism and ascension – where the footsteps of the God-man fell upon wilderness sand in what is now Jordan. Places like Gadara (modern-day Umm Qays), where the excavated ruins of that ancient town sit near the place where Jesus cast demons into a herd of swine, which then tumbled into the Sea of Galilee (Matt. 8:28-34).

The very nature of the Holy Land of Jordan, in fact, seems to be a metaphor for the gospel itself. It was to such unexceptional places that the Son of God came, doing good and healing all those who were oppressed by the devil (Acts 10:38). Man, in his lowest estate, cannot go to a particular palace in a specific seat of power to find Him sitting there. Jesus Christ humbled Himself to find us in our desert land, and not the other way around.

Unexceptional? Yes. Uninspiring? Never.

The futility of empire
Of course, by nature, men and women do not look for God anyway, at least not unaided by His grace. The Scripture says, “There is none righteous, … there is none who understands, there is none who seeks for God,” (Rom. 3:10, 11).

Instead, people spend their years upon the earth building homes and governments and nations.

Historically the Holy Land has always been a strategic land, where trade routes connecting those nations intersected the world east to west and north to south, from Africa to China and from Arabia to Europe.

In the middle of this intersection was Petra, an ancient city in Jordan literally carved out of rock and nestled into a massive fortress with walls made of the mountains themselves. It is one of the most magnificent architectural achievements of man and considered by some to be the eighth wonder of the ancient world.

The city was established in the sixth century B.C. by the Nabataeans, a tribe of Arab nomads who settled down to create a flourishing trading center based in Petra. Some believe the city was known in Old Testament times by other names, such as Sela or Joktheel (2 Kings 14:7).

We entered Petra by first traversing the Siq, a narrow canyon over a half mile long, with cliffs on either side ascending more than 250 feet into the air. The most spectacular sight in Petra is the first one visible after exiting the Siq: Al-Khazneh. It is a breath-taking tomb for an ancient Nabataean king, made famous for many Americans by its appearance in the climactic scenes of the movie Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade (1989).

If merchants and thousand-camel trading caravans crossed through the Holy Land, armies traversed it as well, on their way to war and conquer.

For hundreds of years, the Nabataeans held Petra and made their fortunes. Then the Romans came. First allowing the Nabataeans to live as independent allies, eventually the Emperor Trajan was unwilling to allow any people to slip through his fingers and live unyoked in submission to the Caesars. Roman legionaries came and laid siege to Petra, annexing the region and absorbing the Nabataeans. The trade routes running through the city of stone would belong to Rome and no other.

Another archeological plum in Jordan is the ancient city of Jerash, located less than an hour north of Amman, the Jordanian capital. It was known in New Testament times as Gerasa, in “the country of the Gerasenes” (Mark 5:1; Luke 8:26).

Today Jerash represents one of the largest and most completely preserved Graeco-Roman cities in the Middle East. From the Emperor Hadrian’s “triumphal arch” to its pagan temples and colonnaded streets, from the ancient city forum to Roman theaters and baths, Jerash is a feast for the eyes and a stunning glimpse into the life of Roman citizens two millennia ago.

The ruins of the two ancient cities present a poignant reminder of the suffering as well as the arrogance of mankind. While the ruins of Petra bear mute testimony to the anguish of the conquered, the ruins of Jaresh bear witness to the futility of empire.

The Bible says God has given the earth to the sons and daughters of men (Psalm 115:16), but it also says the Lord will judge persons for how they act toward one another (Acts 17:31).

Both the Romans and the Nabataeans are gone, and the memory of what the one did to the other in its unquenchable thirst for imperial expansion lingers no more, except in the minds of a relatively few historians.

Scripture makes clear, however, that it is vivid in the mind of God, and such sins will be dredged up on the Day of Judgment.

Viewing ruins, it is easy for one to forget that. Even in our own lives, the scars of things done to us heal and fade, and the wounds that we have inflicted on others recede into the dim mist of memory.

It is not so with the mind of God. The gospel calls to us to repent of those sins and trust Christ for forgiveness, before that terrible day when every secret is made known, when the tales told by every block of fallen stone are shouted from the rooftops.

Shaped by the hands of God
While cities and nations and empires of men fade away into crumbled walls and dust, the hand of God has fashioned in our world monuments to His immutable character and overarching power (Rom. 1:20).

One of those places is the red desert of Wadi Rum. East of the city of Aqaba in southern Jordan, this dazzling series of sandy valleys cut out of sandstone and granite mountains looks as if God Himself carved it with His own hands.

It was in this desert that T.E. Lawrence – better known as “Lawrence of Arabia” – organized the Arabs into a rebel force that helped defeat the Ottoman Turks during World War I.

Of course, nothing in nature is truly permanent, either, but in contrast to mankind’s feeble attempts to fashion an enduring civilization, the mountains and cliffs of the Wadi Rum seemed nearly eternal.

In the end of course, such spectacular sights are meant to draw our hearts to God and to seek Him for true eternal existence. It is only the redemptive purposes of God that endure.

The Wadi Rum and places like it should serve to remind us of “the surpassing greatness of His power toward us who believe” (Eph. 1:19).

In light of this, there was no more stunning sight in all of Jordan, in my mind, than the vision of the Jordan valley from the top of Mount Nebo.

According to Deuteronomy 34:1, Mount Nebo – also called Pisgah – was the place from which Moses viewed the Promised Land. He knew he would not be going with the children of Israel across the Jordan River, but from that high vantage point he could see the entire valley.

It was a clear day when our group arrived at Mount Nebo, and I could see from the Sea of Galilee in the north all the way to the Dead Sea in the south. In between was the Jordan River, Jericho just beyond that and, in the distance, the modern city of Jerusalem in Israel.

It was a spectacular vision, and my mind couldn’t help but wonder what it must have been like, thousands of years ago, when hundreds of thousands of Israelites – some say millions – approached the river bordering the Promised Land.

They were on the verge of receiving God’s promise of a new home, and while that generation would fail to gain the promise, the succeeding generation would not. The word of the Lord stands forever, and the redemptive purposes of the Lord will be accomplished.

Who else but God would have chosen the smallest and most insignificant people on earth through which to bring the Messiah into the world? Who else but God would have chosen a stuttering shepherd to lead a slave nation across the desert to freedom?

Who else but God would have chosen an unknown carpenter from a backwater town in a dusty part of the world to save it?

Return to reality
Sitting in a small, cramped hotel room in New York City after my long flight back from Jordan, I found myself a bit depressed. I was returning from exciting locales, from the ruins of long-dead biblical towns, magical and mysterious deserts, and magnificent mountains; there was the Gulf of Aqaba, with its bright blue waters and its fish-filled coral reefs; there were the beautiful hotel accommodations and great food.

In contrast to that, I was returning to the weed-eating I had left undone, articles to write and bills to pay. Real life would be waiting for me, and much of it would be humdrum.

Most of us live in unexceptional places, spending our days in toil and drudgery, and many of us suffer tremendous pain and sorrow. Our lives are watered by just enough happiness to keep the roots alive. This has been life for the majority of people who have ever lived. Like John the Baptist, relatively few have found themselves living luxuriously in king’s palaces.

But it is also true that when the Son of God came to earth, He came to rescue lost lives lived in such unremarkable places.

Yes, the Holy Land of Jordan contains many ruins from a bygone era. But each stone, each piece of pottery, each mosaic, has a message for us: “God once walked here. Rejoice!”  

For more information about traveling to the Holy Land in Jordan, or to find a tour operator, contact the following:
Jordan Tourism Board
6867 Elm Street, Suite 102
McLean, Virginia 22101
Phone: 703-243-7404/5
toll free: 877-733-5673
E-mail: [email protected]
Web: www.visitjordan.com