Father Alex on the Baptisms in the Jordan River

Leaving the Church of the Nativity we traveled to the Jordan river to renew our baptismal covenant. Driving there you see the constant division that is present between the people of Israel and the Jordanians. In fact, the barrier you see below in the picture separates the two sides. After renewing our baptismal covenant we decided to take the plunge literally and fully immerse ourselves in the water. This was not a rebaptism. One need only be baptized once. This was experiencing as an adult what was done for me as a child.

 

Something Fr. Arthur, pictured below, said that touched me is that in baptism we don't bring anything with us. God does all the work. Baptism is not the means of our salvation. That was done on the cross. Instead, baptism is the outward sign of our participation in Christ's death and resurrection. The next time I baptize someone I will be thinking of this moment, and of how cold that water was!

Lastly, we drove away from the Jordan and followed that path into the Judean wilderness. As we remember from Holy Scripture, the Holy Spirit drove Jesus into the wilderness where after forty days he was tempted. Let me be up front, I could not have survived four hours much less forty days. The heat and air of this country feels like it sucks the moisture right out of your body. You feel dehydrated and in constant need of refreshment. I think that for many people this happens spiritually. We walk around, not taking in the life giving food and drink that are our nourishment for the spiritual life. This is why I found our wilderness Eucharistic celebration so powerful. Jesus has gone into the wilderness, that dangerous and unknown place and blessed it. Now there is living water and bread from heaven in the desert. We don't have to be afraid to be in desolate places because Jesus can still feed us there. But we have to come to him when we are hungry and thirsty.