Although two days ago we drove beside the Jordan River, today we got up close. And what better place than where Jesus was baptized? It wasn’t the beauty of the Jordan River that has inspired centuries of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs to include it in their verses.

The river’s presence on Israel’s eastern edge stood as an enduring metaphor of transitions. Significant transitions, in fact. The transitions that occurred there were sometimes national—as with Moses and Joshua, Elijah and Elisha, and John and Jesus. But the area also had its personal transitions—even conversions—as in the cases of Rahab, Naaman, Zaccheus, and Bartimaeus.

Be they national or personal—or both—any new beginning also requires an ending. It requires leaving one shore and crossing the river for another.

Wayne Stiles
Bible Teacher for Emerald Bus 2
Read a devotional about today’s sites.