Jordan Day 2 November 10

Today we started out in Amman. This is the current day capital and preserves the name of the ancient city that was located nearby. This capital has a lot of traffic going through it, but does not have an abundance of resources on its own. This city shows up in the Bible as the main city of the Ammonites, who are descendants of Lot. In a way this makes the Ammonites like family although they do not always have the best relationships with the people of Israel. Bathsheba’s husband was killed in the battle that happened here and Solomon married an Ammonite woman.

similar styles to those found in Israel

evidence of the Roman period

 The second stop that we made was at the city of Gerash/ Jarash. This city is popular because it has the best preserved Roman city outside of Italy. Rightly so it is nicknames the city of 1000 columns. Although it was occupied before the Romans the Roman remains are quite impressive. The Cardo and Decuminous   are impressive in length and there are remains of multiple temples to various gods throughout the city. I thought it was really interesting to see the column that could be moved slightly by pushing on it. I’m not sure what caused it to be like this, but is cool to see.

Herod's gate

another gate in the same style

a pepper tree

bag piper. in Jordan???? 

 The next stop that we did was an overlook on the Jabbok River. This wadi/river cuts through the Cenomanian limestone and creates a rugged and steep cut through the region of upper Gilead. It was at this river where Jacob sent his family and flocks ahead of him and remained on the other side and wrestled with a man until day break.  This is a pivitol point in Jacob’s life. Jacob seems to perceive that the man was God an angel of God in the way that he says afterwards that he had seen God face to face and survived.  I find it interesting how it is possible to see the water imagery that we had talked about earlier playing out in Jacob’s life as well.

This time when Jacob is setting out to cross the Jordan God meets him and wrestles with him. It occurred to me that it is a long time to wrestle all night with someone and not have one person overpower the other person. But if God is wrestling with Jacob then maybe God knows what Jacob can handle and although he very well could take over quite quickly he lets it play out and in the process Jacob gets to a point where God can reach in and touch him in a way that will forever alter his live and start a change that is necessary to create a people who will wrestle with God.

Jacob isn’t the only one in the Bible who ‘wrestles’ with God. Maybe the only one who physically does, but there are a basketful of others who seem to be bold with God and not afraid to wrestle it out. Habakkuk pushes back when God tells him what he is planning to do. Abraham questions God when he is about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Hannah pleads with God for a child and Chazal has many Rabbis in rabbinic literature arguing with God and getting there way.

             In the past couple of years i have thought a lot about arguing with God. It seems that in the western world the concept of being blunt and bold with God is frowned upon. We have dressed up to go to church, we saved our fancy language for praying and we  always act polite. But God repeatedly says that he desires our hearts more than our worship, that he desires justice and grace more than anything we can bring so maybe it is ok to come to God when we are broken in heart. It is the idea that God is God and nothing we can do can change that. God has chosen to love us for who we are while we were still sinners and not even acknowledging his existence, nothing that we bring to him can could stop him from loving us. To me it is the picture of a three year old child throwing a tantrum because he simply doesn’t understand why things happen the way they do and trying to take his frustration on his dad. Nothing that three year old can do or say can physically hurt or change how much that father loves his child, but better it is that the child takes it out in the presence of his father than ignore it all and despise him. If anyone is safe to argue with than it is for sure our heavenly father, but be prepared he might not answer in the way that you want him too, he is our father and knows what’s best. 

final stop of the day was at a place where it is thought to be 'the land of tov'

this is thought to be originally be a large burial building