{"id":15422,"date":"2026-08-20T12:12:39","date_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:12:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?p=15422"},"modified":"2026-08-20T12:12:39","modified_gmt":"2026-08-20T16:12:39","slug":"preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html","title":{"rendered":"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"\"
Adobe Stock<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The year 2030 marks what will be considered by many faithful Christians as the 2,000th<\/sup> anniversary of Jesus\u2019s baptism. The event is described in all four of the Gospels, with Jesus approaching the prophet John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan River. At the time of His baptism, the Spirit of God descends upon Jesus to declare God\u2019s approval. It also marks the beginning of Jesus\u2019s three-year ministry on earth, with Jesus traditionally believed to have been crucified at 33 years old, in the year 33 AD. Today, the site of Bethany Beyond the Jordan, also known as Al-Maghtas in modern-day Jordan, marks the spot where it is believed Jesus was baptized. Four Popes have visited the site to mark its holiness: Paul VI, St. John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI, and Pope Francis.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a significant moment in Christian history, with Jordan\u2019s Prime Minister Jafar Hassan chairing the first meeting of the National Committee for the Preparation of the Celebration of the Second Millennium of the Baptism of Jesus Christ on August 10. The meeting included foreign ministers, religious and community leaders, and representatives of religious organizations. Jordan is planning a major turnout from pilgrims throughout the world to commemorate the event. Jordan\u2019s king, King Abdullah II, has also thrown his support behind the planning. On August 12, Hassan signed agreements to begin work on the development of the lands near the baptism site. These projects total around $120 million, which include a Baptism museum, the development of ecological walking trails near the World Heritage site, and as pilgrim\u2019s and visitor\u2019s village. \u201c[These actions] reflect Jordan’s historical and religious standing and its role as a global destination for Christian pilgrimage, while highlighting the Kingdom’s message of coexistence, respect for others, peace, love and human fraternity,\u201d said Hassan<\/a>. The country hopes the event will attract millions of participants.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s a strong push for religious multiculturalism from a country that is 97% Muslim. \u00a0Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, who is working with Jordan on the preparations, noted King Abdullah\u2019s efforts to maintain peace with his country\u2019s Christians. \u201cWe can make 2030 not just a memory of the past, but a prophetic sign of unity, peace and living faith for the whole world,\u201d he said<\/a>. \u201cMay God accompany us all on this preparatory process for this important event.\u201d Israel\u2019s Foreign Ministry is also preparing for 2030, with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa\u2019ar appointing Ambassador George Deek, Israel\u2019s special envoy to the Christian world, as the head of country\u2019s working group. Sa\u2019ar claimed<\/a> that \u201cstrengthening [Israel\u2019s] relationship with the Christian world and ensuring that the Holy Land remains accessible to the millions of believers who wish to visit are among Israel\u2019s highest priorities.\u201d Preliminary work on the museum and pilgrims\u2019 village will begin towards the end of the first quarter of 2027, along with major construction at the end of the year. Jordan plans to have the projects completed during the first half of 2029.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The year 2030 marks what will be considered by many faithful Christians as the 2,000th anniversary of Jesus\u2019s baptism. The event is described in all four of the Gospels, with Jesus approaching the prophet John the Baptist to be baptized in the Jordan River. At the time of His baptism, the Spirit of God descends…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":516,"featured_media":15425,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"fbia_status":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15422","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"yoast_head":"\nPreparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Jordan plans $120 million in projects at Jesus\u2019s baptism site ahead of the 2,000th anniversary celebration in 2030.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Jordan plans $120 million in projects at Jesus\u2019s baptism site ahead of the 2,000th anniversary celebration in 2030.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Christ News Today\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2026-08-20T16:12:39+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Jesus-Baptism_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"900\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Cecilia Buchanan\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism","description":"Jordan plans $120 million in projects at Jesus\u2019s baptism site ahead of the 2,000th anniversary celebration in 2030.","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism","og_description":"Jordan plans $120 million in projects at Jesus\u2019s baptism site ahead of the 2,000th anniversary celebration in 2030.","og_url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html","og_site_name":"Christ News Today","article_published_time":"2026-08-20T16:12:39+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1200,"height":900,"url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Jesus-Baptism_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","type":"image\/jpeg"}],"author":"Cecilia Buchanan","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html","name":"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Jesus-Baptism_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","datePublished":"2026-08-20T16:12:39+00:00","dateModified":"2026-08-20T16:12:39+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d"},"description":"Jordan plans $120 million in projects at Jesus\u2019s baptism site ahead of the 2,000th anniversary celebration in 2030.","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Jesus-Baptism_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","contentUrl":"https:\/\/wp-media.beliefnet.com\/sites\/409\/2026\/08\/Jesus-Baptism_credit-Adobe-Stock.jpg","width":1200,"height":900,"caption":"Adobe Stock"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/2026\/08\/preparations-begin-for-2000-year-anniversary-of-jesuss-baptism.html#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Preparations Begin For 2000-Year Anniversary of Jesus\u2019s Baptism"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/","name":"Christ News Today","description":"Christian News From Around the Globe","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/#\/schema\/person\/450625ec20bf3e8a84060b9321455f3d","name":"Brandy Grenier","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/author\/bgrenier"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/516"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15422"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15431,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15422\/revisions\/15431"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15425"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15422"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15422"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/christnewstoday\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15422"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}