They have
arrived in Jericho. It is the southern
end of their trip along the Jordan River.
Only a little further south is the Dead Sea. It is a place where nothing will grow, where
the water is poisonous to drink. That is
the place where God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, while saving Lot and his two
daughters from destruction.
The couple
will pass the night in Jericho. There
are inns inside and outside the walls of the city and they will find a place to
stay. It is a traveler’s city, for
travelers coming and going from Jerusalem, for travelers going into the lands
beyond the Jordan, to the east.
So much
history exists in this place. This is
where God knocked down the walls to allow his people, under Joshua, to come
into the Promised Land. Here is where
Rahab, the prostitute, and her family were saved from the destruction of the
city because she hid Joshua’s spies.
She, a Canaanite woman, would be the great-great grandmother of King
David and ancestor to the baby Mary carried.
How big a
deal would that be for us? To be in
Jericho, to know what bible stories took place there? For Mary and Joseph, it is the history of the
land, passed through at least once a year.
It’s like the Statue of Liberty for us, such a wondrous sign of what it
means to be an American, but how many of us have actually been there?
For them, it’s
a rest stop. They will be waiting to
join up with other pilgrims making the climb to Jerusalem and beyond.
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