Day Four- Jordan River, Bet Shan, Susita

Shalom my friends. It has been a very long day, so I am afraid this blog is going to be somewhat short. Sorry, if it is not grammatically correct or poetic, just trying to get the facts out bcause I am really sleepy. Today was another hot day full of hiking and learning, but everyone did great.

We started the day at the Jordan River where we talked about a baptism of repentance. This is actually the place where the name of our church, Riverside was born. It was after hearing RVL talk about being a community who was willing to get into the chaos in order to bring G-d’s shalom that Scott decided the name of our church was especially fitting. You see the picture of this is the Jordan River. Water to the Israelites represented chaos. When G-d asks them to cross the red sea and the Jordan river the Israelites are filled with great fear and dread because water is a symbol of death and the abyss. But G-d tells them that if they will step into the water he will take care of the rest. And so, in obedience the Israelites step into both the Red Sea and the Jordan River and the living G-d comes to part the waters so that they can pass. Why doesn’t G-d just part the waters? Why does He make them step into the water first? Because G-d wants us to have faith in Him. He wants us to be people who are willing to step into the chaos of the world so that through his power we bring Shalom (or restoration) to these places. G-d doesn’t want us to be a people standing on the bank, He wants us to be a people who live with wet feet. So today we stood in the Jordan River and repented as John the Baptist had taught. We confessed the sins of our head, hearts, hands and feet and for the times we have stood in the way of bringing G-d’s kingdom here to earth. We stood together as a community and reclaimed our calling to be a people who want to live with wet feet while bringing G-d’s shalom to the chaos of our world. It was so cool to finally be here with so many from our community. I cannot wait till more of us have the opportunity to come and stand in the Jordan together.

Robert, Esther, Evans, Caleb, and Josh in the Jordan. 

Ben and I at the Jordan. 

Scott in the Jordan. 

Ben and I in the Jordan.

Joanie in the River 

After the Jordan we headed to the Decapolis to study the 10 pagan cities. The decapolis is a great testament to Hellenistic thought. The cities of the decapolis were marvelous. I mean they were amazingly beautiful and big. But they were all destroyed in 7-10 seconds in an earthquake. Everything the Romans had worked for was destroyed in the blink of the eye. So the question is which Kingdom will prevail? The kingdoms of this world, like the decapolis, or G-d’s kingdom. I think we all know the answer. But an even greater question is, which Kingdom prevails in your life at this moment. Have we bought into the its all about me mentality of our culture where we are constantly striving to find easier, faster, and more efficient ways of doing things. Are we focused on what we can do, acquire, and become or are we focused on what G-d can do and create? This was a pretty hard reality for most of us standing there amongst these beautiful ruins. We were mesmerized by the things man created and skipped over the beauty of G-d’s creation.

The Ruins of Bet Shan. This was a pagan city.

It was blazing hot today as we stood here. 

And lastly, we learned of the compassion and heart of Jesus. RVL retold the story of casting out the legions of demons from the demon possessed man. What a beautiful story this is? I know you are thinking, seriously Brooke, G-d casts out the demons into a bunch of pigs that run off the side of the mountain, what is beautiful about that? Well, I don’t want to give it all away here, but think about these things….1)who gets out of the boat to go up to him? (mark 5) 2) where does this man get his clothes from after Jesus casts the demons out 3) what are the repercussions for Jesus touching this unclean man? All I have to say is our Rabbi is one loving dude!! He has so much to teach us about compassion, about being a community that brings His shalom to people in chaos. Think about this, Jews refer to people who have chaos in life as the poor…how does that change what you think about all those verses about helping the poor out?

Well, we leave this hotel tomorrow morning, so we are all frantically getting packed and ready to leave. We will spend half a day in Galilee, then head to Tel Aviv to get on a plane to Istanbul, then get off the plane in Istanbul and on another one headed for Izmir. We should be at our new hotel tomorrow night around 2am and then we are up at 6am to start our next day of hiking. So please pray that we are able to get sleep on the plane and bus rides. Again, thanks for all of you who are reading and commenting. We are sharing your comments with the group and they are loving the encouragement. We love you and miss you all. Oh, greatest story of the day…Charles and Beth McCash renewed their vows on top of susita. So so cool!!

This is what we saw at our last stop of the day as the sun was going down over the Galilee. This is where Charles and Beth rededicated their vows. So pretty!