Bethany Beyond the Jordan — Al-Maghtas — sits on the eastern bank of the Jordan River, and it is here that John the Baptist is believed to have lived and baptised Jesus. The site was authenticated by Pope John Paul II in 2000 and inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2015. I am not a religious person — I was raised in a vaguely Catholic household in France where church was for weddings, funerals, and Christmas — but I have visited enough sacred sites to know that belief is not a prerequisite for being moved. And this place moved me.
The Walk to the River
You arrive at a visitor center and join a guided tour that walks you through the archaeological excavations — a procession of ruins that builds in emotional weight as you approach the river. The remains of Byzantine churches cluster near the riverbank, their foundations still visible, their floor plans revealing how communities of faith organized themselves around a single geographical fact: this is where it happened. Baptism pools — some dating to the first century, some to the Byzantine era — dot the landscape, their plaster still intact in places, their steps descending into shallow basins that once held the holiest water in Christendom. Hermit caves carved into the hillside above suggest that early Christians came here not just to visit but to stay — to live in proximity to the site as a form of permanent devotion.
The River
The Jordan River itself is the surprise. If you are expecting the mighty waterway of biblical narrative — the river that parted for Joshua, that Naaman bathed in, that Jesus crossed — you will find instead a narrow, muddy stream perhaps five metres wide, bordered by reeds and tamarisk trees, flowing so slowly it barely seems to move. This modesty is partly natural and partly the result of water diversion upstream, but the effect is powerful. The river is real. It is not a monument or a reconstruction or a symbol. It is a small, warm, brown river in a dry valley, and pilgrims wade into it from both the Jordanian and Israeli sides, the border running down its center, and the emotion on their faces transcends any question of archaeology or authentication.
I watched a group of Brazilian pilgrims in white robes enter the water, singing hymns in Portuguese, their voices carrying across the narrow valley. On the Israeli side, another group — Russian, from their songs — entered from the opposite bank. The two groups were perhaps three metres apart, separated by a river and a border and several thousand kilometres of geography, united by a story they both believed and a water they both trusted. I stood on the bank and watched, and I thought about what it means for a place to be sacred — not in the theological sense but in the human one. A place becomes sacred when enough people bring their deepest hopes to it. This place has been receiving those hopes for two thousand years, and the accumulation is palpable.
The new church buildings, donated by nations around the world, sit on the hillside above the excavations, each in its own architectural tradition — Greek Orthodox, Roman Catholic, Armenian, Coptic, Russian Orthodox — a theological diversity rendered in stone and tile and gold leaf. The site is spare, sun-baked, and free of the commercialism that burdens other holy places. There are no souvenir shops inside the gates, no hawkers, no selfie sticks. Its power lies in its simplicity, and in the fact that the river — however diminished — is still flowing.
When to go: October to April for comfortable temperatures. Fridays and Sundays see the most pilgrims. The site is a short drive from the Dead Sea and Amman, making it easy to combine. Modest dress is required.