Ancient Pathways: Jordan and Egypt

This trip will combine academic insight, Biblical perspective, daily devotions, adventure, and a little danger. Among other things we will tent on the desert floor, visit a city carved out of stone, explore the Cairo Museum, and climb a mountain that Moses climbed.


The trip will be in November. I'm seeking to book-shelf the trip by two weekends - for minimal school or work disruption. Itinerary forthcoming. 


For that "perfect decompression" why not consider adding the option of luxury Nile River Cruise at the end of the trip?

Questions? Comments? Inquiries? Write me: BillB@KerDowney.com

 

A New Kerr and Downey Trip Brewing: Footsteps of Moses

I cannot tell you the excitement in my heart in planning this trip. Perhaps you will capture it as I share:

First, we fly to Amman Jordan and visit Mt. Nebo (last known place of Moses), see the site of Jesus' baptism at the Jordan River, explore Petra (an amazing city carved out of stone and laded with history), and climb a small mountain which overlooks the city. Then we fly to Sharm el Sheikh (at the bottom of the Sinai peninsula - fabulous diving) where we will share an evening with the Bedouin, tent in the desert for a night, climb Mt. Sinai, stay another overnight at St. Katherine's monastery - where we will have a rare opportunity to tour the famous library (not open to the public) with a monk in residence. Then... we will drive down to Cairo and see Old Cairo and visit the Coptic Church where Mary and Joseph stayed in the Flight to Egypt, visit the pyramids, and tour Egyptian museum.  After that, you will have the option to return home or, like me, choose to stay on for a three day cruise down the Nile River!

This trip is a unique blend of New Testament and Old Testament, with much early church tradition and education thrown in for good measure. Morning gatherings will be group sharing, praise/worship, prayers, and devotion/teaching on the Tabernacle of Moses.

Local guides and 5 Star accommodators, Ker and Downey assure us of safety, adventure, expert flight arrangements from anywhere in the world - and, of course, "heavenly accommodations." This trip is the perfect blend of historical, academic, and spiritual formation - experienced here at the conception points of our Faith.

Adventure Window: early November, 2011. Dates will be firmed up within a week.

Interested? If you send me your name and the aprox. amount of people in your group, and I will update you as details roll in! There's no obligation in being interested! Trip is limited to 15 people.

Last Chance for this Trip!

Ever wanted to walk the Holy Land as a Prayer in Itself? Pray about it.
There's still time for this trip.
Click here to read a detailed itinerary of Footsteps of Jesus. 

Matthew Devotion 28:18,19

"... All authority has been given unto me... Go!..."

Jesus rose and now reigns over all powers - seen and unseen - and imparts to us that same authority.

This authority has nothing to do with education, experience, training, desires, gifts, personality temperaments, past sins, or human DNA. It has everything to do with the Gift he gives us.

Through believing in his Life, Death, and Resurrection we receive the forgiveness of our sins and the promise of never dying. When that Salvation is sealed with the Holy Spirit, God also gives us the same authority that Jesus had - an authority is needed for the task given us. Without it we cannot love. Without it we cannot reveal Life. Without it nothing we do for the Lord will last. It is essential and given us the moment we leave the stone shelf and walk into the Easter Mist. It happens the moment we leave our grave clothes aside and walk into the Blaze of the New Day.

This is the New You. The Person everyone now sees. Old things have passed. Behold! All things have become new!

The authority of the Spirit is a bit like placing a police uniform on a bum. In his previous state, the bum may have walked into the street, held up his hand, and immediately get smeared by oncoming traffic. In his gifted state, however, the bum can now walk into that same street and - simply, with the raising of one white-gloved hand - cause an entire freeway to cease to a halt.

Spiritual authority is recognized by just about everybody.

Jesus has commissioned you to go out and tell others about who he is and what his doing. This is his Will for your life. He has done everything to make it easy for you. He has prepared the people to hear your words. He has surrounded you with people already like you, who understand your uniqueness - your tongue to them - and actually like you!  He has bestowed upon you all the Authority and Love needed to do all it takes.

All you have to do it raise your white-gloved hand.

Use it to bind. Use it to unbind. Use it to stop the enemy. Use it to lay hands on the sick. Use it to do everything the Jesus did. You are his Body now, his Sanctuary, his Voice to the Lost.  Make no mistake, he is still doing the exact same things he was when he was here before - you know, healing the sick, raising the dead, revealing the Almighty Love of the Father in word and deed. Only now, he is using you to do it.

"All authority being given Me" is, by default, "all authority given to us," since we are no less members of the his Body than he is of the Godhead. The authority is a garment bestowed upon us by Grace alone - by his Will alone - and has nothing to do with how one feels about him or herself.

"Sainthood"  is a status, not a level of personal achievement, after all.

So ignore the voices which speak against using you the fulfillment of the Great Commission. "I am not good enough... I am not a Priest... I am not worthy... I have nothing to say... It's hasn't been long enough since my last sin... They will reject me..."  and all the other cluttering echoes rising from the defeated the Pit. They no longer have power over you. Rise up in faith, snap the Serpentine Spell with your heal, and walk out of Tomb with Christ into the Will of the New Day.

Make disciples around the world, baptize them in the Name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit, and invite them to join you in observing everything Jesus has taught and commanded.

And, through it all, rest assured that that God will never leave you or forsake you. Both his authority and his Ever-Loving Presence will continuously cloak you - within and without -   "even to the end of the age."

Lord Jesus Christ, you stretched out your arms of love on the hard wood of the cross that everyone might come within the reach of your saving embrace: So clothe us in your Spirit that we, reaching forth our hands in love, may bring those who do not know you to the knowledge and love of you; for the honor of your Name. Amen.

Matthew Devotion 28:9

"... Rejoice.."

Jesus declared his authority over the Womb in the Incarnation, his Lordship over the Old Covenant in his baptism, the fulfillment of Messianic Prophecies in his life;  absolute authority over the Law when dealing with the Pharisees and Sadducees, his authority over sickness in his healing ministry. His Cosmic Authority over all Created Order was established by stilling the seas and walking on the water, his authority over the Demonic Realms by the banishment of evil spirits; his unconditional love and authority to forgive us all our sins - regardless how grievous or repetitious they may forever be - by the giving of his life for our eternal welfare.

Now, the last remaining stronghold to be conquered is the Serpentine's Spell, Death itself - which he - "oh, as a matter-of-factly" - he broke when, in the clearing of the early Easter Mist, the earth quaked, his flesh was infused with New Life in the Holy Spirit, and he slipped free from the garments of death and, with his first baby steps of New Life, crushed the skull of the snake with the heel of his foot, forever rendering it powerless.

It happens.

"Rejoice!" The heavens lit up - as they did at the birth of the Same. Angel's mounted, racing to the Battlefield to proclaim to the Never-Again Captives - amazed and perplexed -  "He is not here; for he has risen!"

Now there is nothing in our human experienced untouched by the Finger of God. All Created Order (physical, emotional, spiritual, experiential - everything we know and ever will know) is privy to God's Glorious Redemption found in the Rising of the Lord Jesus Christ. Nothing is out of bounds, not even death itself.  There is nothing left to do but to join the company of Angels - regardless of our situation, in the fact of a certain Future Redemption - and say, "Rejoice!"

In rising from the dead Jesus is established as the King of all Kings and the Lord of all Lords over every human experience.

A rich man rolled the Stone to seal the embalmed Body; an angel rolled away that same Stone - not to set our Lord free from the Tomb (as if he couldn't pass through matter in his resurrected state!), but to show us that our last enemy has been conquered. The sweet fragrance, resurrection's afterglow, has now been released into all Creation.

And - perhaps more significant for us - his resurrection in the Tombs of our Hearts assures us both of his present forgiveness/ healing and the certain afterlife when we too, following the trajectory of the Second Adam, will also ease from our grave clothes into a eternal state of New Life on that great and glorious Day.

The angel sits atop the Stone and invites the onlooker to peek into the Heart of the Matter. The women are filled with both fear and joy. Following the angel's instructions, they run to tell the disciples and, while on the run, run smack-dab into Jesus. With a single gaze he had read their mail and meets the exact emotions of their hearts. "Do not be afraid."  He can say that because has disarmed Death (the Patriarch of all fear) and thus, in him - as we remain in him - there is no fear.

"Rejoice!"

Don't try to analyze the event. You will never arrive. True spiritual understanding comes when we simply bless the blossoming works of God with an unhindered, child-like, belief.

"Rejoice!"

Matthew Devotion 27:60

"... he laid the body in his new tomb which he had hewn out of the rock..."

As the rich man from Arimathea - who hewed a new tomb from rock, took care to wrap the incoming Christ, and rolled the stone over its entrance; as the poor Virgin Mary - who prepared for the Incarnation in her Womb through purifying her heart, received the greeting of the Angel, and took conceived Christ in her own, Virgin Tomb - so that same Christ is laid to rest in our hearts when they have been prepared through personal devotion, hewn out of our hearts of stone, and made clean.

Many of us would invite the Deadened God into tombs that reflect the ghoulish backdrop of this narrative. Our wet floors slippery with the fungus from the drippings from our sinful stalactites, the corners of our caverns all but hidden by webs of deception, the stagnate air musky with the stench of yellow mold.

But we are to prepare a Way for the coming of the Lord, are we not? Have we not been called to make a place prepared for the Lord? Sure! We have a Divine Directive to raise the valleys and lower the mountains and welcome the Son of God into a heart that has been, to the best of our ability, paved with Holiness, curbed with the Fruit of Repentance.

As Mary (sitting opposite the tomb) watched the rich man carefully wrap her boy in clean linens, she too could remember when she had done the same. As the rich man laid the Lifeless God onto the stone shelf, she could remember the times when she too had tucked him into the manger, closing the door behind. From her Womb to his Tomb. From the Wood of the Manger to the Wood of the Cross. All had been full-circled around to this eerie place. It was a heart-ripping, saddening completion - to be sure, eerie - but, all the same, the completion of a Divine Visitation that would never, nor could ever, be fully understood.

Neither Mary nor the rich man knew the end of the Story. The were content to prepare their tombs and humbly be ready for the incoming Christ. They had no real idea of his resurrection, and how it would radically change their lives forever. For now,  their obedience was good enough.

May we have that same faith - the Faith of a Child - that we, being cleansed and made new by the indwelling Christ, would prepare the Caverns of our Souls to equally welcome the Crucified Christ.

Matthew Devotion 27:46

"... My God, My God, why have you forsaken me..."

Jesus was told right up front that he was God's beloved Son, "with whom I am completely blessed." (Matthew 3:17). He was told those same words mid-way through his ministry. "Listen to him!" (Matthew 17) He was affirmed as the Son of God, One with the Father, in complex relationship with the Father and the Spirit, throughout his entire life. There was no doubt that Jesus was God's Son.

Yet today, in the bleakest of days, he hangs questioning everything he has ever known.

Somewhere deep inside, he knows who he is in God's will. But today his experience couldn't speak more contrary. Yet he still calls God, "MY God." Though God had forsaken him. Jesus doesn't forsake his God. Though a "Forsaken God," still his God all the same.

No matter what.

Our darkest experiences, our greatest pains, our most disorientating chaos do nothing to remove, deny, or intimidate the Lordship of Christ, nor his Sacred History in our life. He reigns on the Peaks. He remains in the Valleys. He is not shaken by Creation's Doubt, but is drawn all the more into it in order to resurrect the remains of the Day. At our worse, he is his best. At our best, he is still his best. Independent and blended. He remains faithful, when we are not.

As we follow Jesus into his crucifixion we will also utter these same words, "My God... Why have you forsaken me?" They need to be uttered, to be believed, or it is not a true crucifixion.

They need not be said in guilt, believing that God becomes something less than God when we voice our angst questioning whether he even still exists. It is in our complete unraveling that God drapes us in his Glory. We have finally come to the Cross, as did our Lord. We have finally voiced our deepest fears - that God has left the House. We have nothing more.

We have been Crucified.