Day Nine- our final day of touring

Day nine - our final full day

Jordan. - Amman to Jerash to Mount Nebo to Masada Mosaic to Amman again.

For the first time in a long time we started after 8:00. After another great breakfast most of us headed north from Amman to Jerash. This is another huge excavated site showing a Greco-Roman city. There would be much more to dig up, but homes have been built over much of it for generations.  

Jerash is in the land of Gilead. This area shows up in the Bible in many places. Jacob flees there after conning his father-in-law Laban. They come to a truce there, piling stones as a border. Gilead means something like “stone pile.” It is near there, at Beth Peor, that Jacob wrestles with God. “There is a balm in Gilead” the old African-American Spiritual, comes from a line in Jeremiah 8:22 where he is lamenting his community, asking, “is there no balm in Gilead? No physician to cure ...”. Apparently the land was known for its medicinal plants and doctors.  

Jerash is an immense excavation. It prospered primarily from about 300 BC to 200 AD or so. It has broad streets, a hippodrome, many temples, a theater, etc. In the 6th century Byzantine Christians made their mark with many churches there. Only ruins remain of those. In recent years chariot races had been performed in Jerash as tourist shows, but I think those have stopped again. 

In the Bible we often hear of the Ammonites and the Moabites. Both of those kingdoms were in central and northern Israel. So as we headed to Mount Nebo, we passed from the area of Gilead through Amon to Moab. Some of that land had been given to the tribes of Manasseh (Gilead); Gad (Amon) and Reuben (Moab).  

We had our final Mass together at Mount Nebo, where Moses was allowed to see the Promised Land, but not to enter it. There is a view across the whole Jordan Valley. On a good day you can see the Mediterranean, and far to the north and to the south. It wasn’t a great day to identify everything, but we did recognize the Sea of Galilee, Jericho, the Dead Sea, our skirts of Jerusalem and a few other things.  

The church was built over 6th century ruins and incorporated many of the mosaics into the walls and floors. It was a good place to have a final Mass and tie together the Transfiguration and this passage describing Moses view and death (Deuteronomy 34). 

After lunch at a cafe with a panoramic view of the Jordan Valley, we went to a factory that makes mosaics, a traditional craft of Jordan. Outside the building was a smaller replica of the Magaba Mosaic, a 6th century map of the Holy Land which had been over 30 meters in length. It once was more than 3,000,000 tile pieces.  

After that we got a bus tour of downtown Amon. We saw the Friday markets (Friday is the Muslim Holy Day) which sell EVERYTHING. Due to the “weekend” traffic was light and from the bus we saw the palace, various governmental buildings, the Blue Mosque and directly facing it, a Coptic Church. We also saw the difference between the older East side, with lower rents and the expensive West side with its much higher rents. There are several refugee camps, going back to 1948 on the East side.  

In the evening, after dinner, all 37 of us gathered again for prayer. By this time we were all in pretty good health again. We had a few songs, and responded to a litany of praise, and determination to let Jesus be our guide. I will include that here when I can clean it up a bit for publication.  

We left for the airport at 11:00 and have been traveling up to this moment. I write from Chicago on Saturday night.  

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