Pilgrimage (7 page)

If God wanted to pick a place where His chosen people could live and prosper and form a nation governed by His laws, why didn’t He put them on an island, like Fiji, in the middle of the Pacific? Why not select a more isolated piece of land protected by steep mountains or formidable deserts? Why put the people He loved on the intersection of a busy street between powerful pagan empires? For that matter, why hasn’t God told Christians to retreat to small, isolated communities, far away from everything that’s wrong with our culture, and live like the Amish?

Maybe it’s because spiritual growth and vibrant faith in God don’t happen in isolation, but under pressure. Without the danger of threats from Pharaoh, we never would have to decide if we’re going to trust in our own chariots and horses, or in God. Maybe we can see more clearly what we believe and who we are when we’re able to contrast our faith to other nations who don’t know God, holding them side by side like before-and-after pictures. Our faith often grows stronger
when we have to defend our beliefs, the same way that patriotism flowers and blooms when our country is threatened. And for most of us, our prayer life certainly flourishes when we’re under siege; they say there are no atheists in foxholes.

Of course, with so much exposure to other cultures, the temptation to abandon God and adopt the ways of the surrounding, invading nations becomes a powerful lure. This temptation is especially strong for the second and third generations who haven’t experienced God’s presence and miracles firsthand, only by word of mouth. And once we settle down and build homes and plant vineyards, we tend to get complacent. That’s what happened in Israel again and again. And it’s what I’m continually tempted to do.

I want the American Dream of a home in the suburbs, an SUV in the garage, and all of the other toys and trinkets of modern American life, just like my neighbors have. I want to reinforce my future security with retirement investments and insurance plans—the fortresses and arsenals of modern life. I want to look respectable and be accepted by my neighbors as badly as the Israelites did when they asked God to give them a king like the other nations. Israel got Saul for their king and rejected God. I do the same thing whenever building the American Dream becomes more important to me than building God’s kingdom. And whenever my resources, time, and passion go into living the good life instead of the godly life.

The other danger for Israel, living at the crossroads, came during times when foreign oppressors tried to systematically stamp out their religion. One of those oppressors was the ruthless monarch Antiochus Epiphanes, who made it illegal for the Jews to study the Torah or practice their faith. He slaughtered thousands of faithful Jews who refused to obey
him, and he culminated his apostasy by sacrificing a pig on God’s altar in the Temple in Jerusalem. His tyranny led to the rise of a group called the Pharisees—the separate ones—who were fanatically committed to fighting for and clinging to God’s Law. A second group, the Maccabees, took up arms as freedom fighters and managed to win back the nation and their Temple. Jews still celebrate their victory and the miracle of the menorah lights at Hanukkah.

It might be easier to combat an invading culture when it comes in the form of a tyrannical ruler and clearly drawn battle lines. But more often the invasions in our lives are subtle. When my children were young, I waged a constant struggle to separate Christianity from culture. How, for example, could we celebrate Jesus’ birth in a meaningful way when the secular culture had hijacked our holy day and turned it into a spending extravaganza with Santa Claus? How could we make the joy of Christ’s resurrection clear when that day had become an Easter egg hunt? It’s not always easy to separate God’s truth from cultural tradition and teach our children and grandchildren what faith is all about.

Lately, the battle between Christianity and popular culture seems to be heating up. The standards of Christian morality used to be accepted as the norm in America, even if they weren’t necessarily practiced. Today, our culture calls me intolerant if I don’t condone its standards of morality, and it tries to coerce me into agreement. It’s at this time when I again ask why God didn’t put Christians on an island, where we could quietly live a life of community and love according to Christ’s teachings.

But as much as I may wish for isolation, it was never God’s plan for Israel or for us. The book of Acts pictures the early church as a vibrant, growing community in Jerusalem until
persecution and exile scattered believers throughout the Roman Empire. Exile forced believers to follow Christ while living smack-dab in the middle of pagan Roman society. God gave Abraham this piece of land on the crossroads of the nations because He had promised that the world would be blessed through Abraham’s descendants. Jesus came to be a light to the Gentiles, and His light needs to shine through us, His body. We have to stand at the world’s crossroads if we want the world to see that light.

God also puts His people in the middle of things for the same reason that He put the tree of temptation in the middle of the Garden—so that our choice to follow Him would be a conscious, daily one. Every time we publicly choose to live for Christ, He is glorified. It’s simpler, no doubt, to live an obedient life on an island than on Wall Street—but what a statement a Christian lifestyle could make there. All of Israel’s neighboring nations were amazed at a people who worshiped one God in a temple that contained no images. A life lived by the morality of the Torah produced a vivid contrast to the idolatrous, immoral, perverted ways of the surrounding nations. The Torah even prescribed the clothing that the Jews were to wear and the food they could and could not eat. They were told how to cut their hair and trim their beards and were commanded to rest from their work on the Sabbath. Following all of these laws was to be a conscious choice, done out of love for God and in obedience to His Word, whether it made any sense to a watching world or not. Did wearing tassels on their garments and refusing to eat pork really make some magical, mysterious difference? God seemed to think so.

We are “Exhibit A” to a world that’s indifferent to God. How else will they see the difference between a life lived with
God and one lived without Him except by our example? If I’m lying in a hospital ward beside an atheist, I hope she’ll see a clear contrast between the way I face pain and death and the way she does. She should also need sunglasses as the body of Christ shines His glory throughout the room, gathering around me to offer prayer and support.

The interesting thing is that the faith God handed down to Moses has endured in spite of their location on the crossroads. No other religious system—Roman, Assyrian, Babylonian, Egyptian, or Canaanite—is still being followed and practiced by its descendants four thousand years later despite such outrageous obstacles as enemy invasions, exile, and dispersion. All around me in this land, I see telltale tassels dangling from men’s garments; flourishing Kosher restaurants and butcher shops; Torah study centers and day schools spilling over with students. And every Sabbath, the stores in Jerusalem close their doors, the public buses and trains stop running, and the Jewish people cease their labor for a day of rest. This nation, this enduring Jewish faith, are testimonies to the world of God’s faithfulness and love.

What about us? Our Christian faith is still being practiced two thousand years after Jesus’ resurrection. The kingdom is still growing, His Word is still being taught. It might be harder to take a stand as a Christian these days, but maybe that’s a good thing. The practice of my faith can’t be—shouldn’t be—rote or routine the way I’ve allowed it to become. It needs to be a conscious, daily choice, not motivated by peer pressure or law the way that the Taliban or Iran’s morality police enforce Islam. The central reason for choosing to follow Christ in my daily life should be my deep love for God. I was called, chosen, loved, and redeemed by Him, just as
Israel was. My response to such love and grace should be the natural one of love and obedience in return.

God promised Abraham that through him the whole world would be blessed. He fulfilled that promise in Abraham’s descendant, Jesus Christ. As His followers, living at the crossroads of nations and cultures, we are also called to be a blessing to the world. Are we? God has graciously provided us with a road map—His holy Word. We all have friends and relatives and co-workers who are lost or heading in the wrong direction. What a blessing we would be to them if we stood at the crossroads and pointed to the right path.

Up to Jerusalem

For years I have blithely read in the Bible how Jesus and His disciples went
up
to Jerusalem, but today I’m experiencing the full impact of that simple, two-letter word—
UP
. What a hard climb it is from the plains of the Jordan River
up
to Jerusalem. The road ascends some 3,800 feet in only fourteen miles. Our tour bus labors up the slope, the driver shifting and downshifting, the engine whining and protesting. I can’t imagine making this pilgrimage on foot, hiking up this steep road with my extended family, carrying piles of bedding and food and livestock for my offerings. But I can imagine the conversation that might have taken place because I’ve heard it on countless family car trips: “Are we there yet?” “I’m tired.” “I’m thirsty.” “Quit complaining!”

———

Going up to Jerusalem requires stamina. Three times a year, pilgrims from Galilee, including Jesus and His disciples, would have followed the Jordan River south to Jericho near
the Dead Sea, then taken this road up—and up—to Jerusalem. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth at 1,300 feet below sea level, and Jerusalem is situated at 2,550 feet above sea level. It requires hard work and sacrifice to worship God. It’s much easier to stay home and forget the long journey, but according to Jewish law, the people were required to go three times a year for the three annual festivals as soon as they were old enough to walk. Moses had warned the Israelites that they were in danger of forgetting their history and their God once they settled down in homes and villages. And whenever Israel backslid into idolatry, they stopped making these pilgrimages. The national revivals begun by good kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah always began by renewing the celebration of Passover and the other feasts.

Mount Zion Today

In each of the three pilgrimage festivals, the Israelites reenacted a portion of their history so they would never forget it. At Passover they relived the night in Egypt when they daubed
blood on their doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over their homes. For Pentecost, they reenacted the day that God gave the Torah on Mount Sinai and they responded, “Whatever the Lord says, we will do” (see Deuteronomy 5:27). During the Feast of Tabernacles, they ate and slept in flimsy huts, open to the skies, to recall their desert wanderings. The three pilgrimages also reminded them of their ancestor Abraham who journeyed with God beneath the open skies his entire life. That long walk demonstrated that our spiritual life will always be a continuing journey of faith.

Our bus continues to climb up and up. Soon we reach a dividing line between the dry desert and the green highlands. The mountains around Jerusalem form a boundary line—green to the west, thanks to the moist Mediterranean air; dry and brown to the east, where that moisture never reaches. This forms a visual picture of a life with God and a life without Him. Without the water of God’s Word, without Christ the living water, there is only death and desolation. As the pilgrims ascended on their journey, climbing up from death to life, they experienced a visual picture of what God’s Word meant in their lives—and in our lives.

I’m told that the Temple roof, adorned with the equivalent of $3 billion dollars in gold, was visible from a distance, shining in the sunlight as pilgrims approached. Jerusalem itself is a golden city, constructed from the creamy golden limestone found in that region. I can understand the pilgrims’ excitement and anticipation when they finally glimpsed the city and the Temple in the distance. After the long journey, after the hard climb, they would be able to relax and rest and celebrate the festivals with feasting and joy. In describing the feasts in the Torah, God says over and over, “Rejoice!” And in
all of the feasts that I’ve celebrated with my Jewish friends, I’ve eaten until I was stuffed, laughed until my sides ached, and gone to bed with peace in my heart. It’s the same joy and relief I experience on Easter morning after the somber soul-searching of Good Friday—death transformed into life.

The annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem remind us that our spiritual life is not only a journey but a cycle of journeys. We’ll never fully arrive until we reach heaven. But while we’re here on earth we can continue to move toward a higher goal, “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12–13). Up and up. It’s important not to stay home like spiritual infants, resting on past glories and miracles, content with the relationship we had with Christ when we first became born again. It’s important that we keep moving toward God, climbing and sacrificing and remembering.