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Thursday 6 January 2011

Jesus’s baptism site along the shores of the Jordan to re-open

British Blogs

After 42 years as a closed military zone, the site where John baptized Jesus along the shores of the Jordan River will permanently open to the public with a special ceremony on January 18. Until now, those wanting to be healed by the same waters in which Jesus was blessed have had to coordinate their visits with the Civil Administration for Judea and Samaria.
            This week it was soldiers, not a heavenly voice, that greeted The Jerusalem Post when it visited the site, known as Kasr al-Yehud. The military jeep was parked by a wire fence, next to a potholed road that looked more like the entrance to an abandoned estate rather than the opening gate of one of the holier Christian sites.
            Physically, Jesus was born in Bethlehem, but his spiritual birth occurred along this small bend of the Jordan River. With an eye to transforming the baptismal spot into a major tourist attraction and oasis of regional cooperation, Israel has invested millions of shekels in upgrading the site, located over the Green Line in the Jordan Valley. After the 18th, it will operate like any other tourist site in Israel, under the auspices of Israel’s Nature and Parks Authority.
            The opening falls on the date when Greek and Russian Orthodox Christians make an annual pilgrimage to the site to celebrate the Feast of the Epiphany marking Jesus’s baptism.
            In advance of its opening, Regional Development Minister Silvan Shalom visited the site Tuesday, standing on the banks of the Jordan to hear an IDF assessment of what had been done and what still needed to be done to the site, including repaving its main road.
            There is great potential for growth, particularly among Christians from Russia and the surrounding eastern bloc European countries, he said. Jordan, he said, has known how to market its side of the river, where Christians are also drawn to the spiritual waters.
            According to Shalom, 800,000 visitors come to the Jordanian side on an annual basis, but only 65,000 come to the Israeli shores.
            Just half an hour before Shalom spoke, believers could be seen walking into the water on the Jordanian side. On the Israeli side, a small group of worshipers gathered around a priest as he sprinkled them with water from the river, with the help of a few green branches. But although they were within shouting distance of each other, neither group could cross the river, because it acts as a border between the two countries.

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