Holy Land Pilgrimage: Day 11

Thursday, May 11, 2023

After visiting three of the holiest sites on earth, I’m not sure the next day ever had much hope of meeting that high bar. In a sense, our visits today bore that out. And, in a sense, they didn’t. God was powerfully present today, too, just in different kinds of stones – “living stones” of the living church (1 Peter 2:5).

With our faith story paused yesterday at the crucifixion and resurrection, today we drove to a possible site of Biblical Emmaus to take up the story’s next chapter. In Luke’s Gospel, it was on the road to Emmaus that Jesus came walking alongside two of his followers on Easter Day, both of them caught in hopelessness and grief. As far as they knew, Good Friday was the end of the story, and that “reality” kept them from knowing who was walking beside them. As they talked, Jesus brought them hope again, explaining how suffering wasn’t a sign of failure but a sign of messiahship. At dinner that evening, Jesus took the bread on the table, and broke it, and gave it to his traveling companions. Suddenly they understood who’d been walking alongside them – and just as suddenly, he vanished. But he’d been there with them, so hope was alive.

Faces erased from the frescoes at Church of the Resurrection. 

We marked this story by visiting a church, of course – the Church of the Resurrection in Abu Ghosh, one of only three Crusader churches not badly damaged or destroyed when the Muslims reclaimed their land. This church is also noteworthy for its partial frescoes. They’re unfinished because the church was built just before the Crusaders’ defeat, and the Christians had to leave before the paint was dry (or at least before the works were complete). The Muslims turned it into a mosque and chose not to finish the paint job. In fact, they erased some of it – people’s faces, which Islam doesn’t allow to be represented in worship spaces.

Gathering for worship overlooking the hills where Emmaus
may have been.

We then visited the nearby Church of Our Lady of the Ark of the Covenant, a name begging explanation. The church is near Kiriath Jearim, where the Ark of the Covenant was kept for 20 years before the Temple’s time. Our group lived our new covenant of eternal life not by visiting the church (which was closed for repairs) but by being church, sharing Eucharist on the grounds overlooking the hills where Emmaus may have been. We’ve seen so many churches, and that’s fine by me, as something of a church wonk. But our gathering as church there in the garden did what Jesus promised it would do: It brought him present among us and present as us. Yes, he’s really there in the bread and wine, and he’s just as present in the gathering of regular folks doing their best to follow him. Our pilgrim group has become “church” over these 10 days; and as the Body of Christ in this particular place and moment, Jesus was there among us.

Jaffa's big fish, looking very self-satisfied.

Then we drove to Jaffa, the ancient port city next to which Tel Aviv was built, to connect with more stories of resurrected life. It was from Jaffa that Jonah sailed away trying to escape God's call, only to be thrown overboard, coughed up by a fish on the third day, and returned to prophetic duty. It was in Jaffa that Peter brought a woman named Tabitha back from death. And it was there, in the home of Simon the Tanner, where Peter received a vision that changed everything about who this new Jesus movement would be for. God told Peter not to observe the dietary restrictions he had known from birth as a faithful Jew – in fact, God said, Peter must not declare “unclean” what God had made to be clean. For Peter, it must have blown his mind, as if someone told us today that we should love people who hate us, and not retaliate when people hurt us, and give our property away (oh, wait…). Minds are still blown, 2,000 years later.

Today, Jaffa is a great spot for a seaside getaway. 

Today, Jaffa is a cool artists’ colony on the sea, and the visit wasn’t stunning from a typical pilgrimage perspective. But riding back to Jerusalem on the bus with these people from many different places who’ve truly grown to care for one another, I realized the second gift I’ve been receiving on this pilgrimage. Building on yesterday’s gift of “enough,” today I saw the gift of community.

I came here assuming that I’d be the odd man out, that everyone else in the group would share a common church and common history (which turned out not to be true at all). And I knew I had a different agenda anyway, not just wanting to meet God in the Holy Land but wanting to learn how to lead pilgrimages myself. So, as I said, I’d planned to stay a couple of extra days on my own to continue my experience and scout additional locations. But yesterday, I decided to go home early, with the rest of the group. Why? Well, a presenting situation was the heightened conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians. I didn’t want to be stuck here on my own if rockets hit Ben Gurion airport. But I also knew I was ready to leave, that I’d received that gift of “enough” through what I’ve learned and how I’ve grown here.

The pilgrims.

But today, I saw, too, that I’m not sure I could have continued a pilgrimage after the rest of this group left. God’s Holy Land, geographically and spiritually, is meant to be shared; all three Abrahamic faiths teach us how badly we need one another. A Christian certainly can travel alone and learn about a wonderful place. But, just as you can’t be a Christian by yourself, I don’t think you can be a Christian pilgrim by yourself – or, at least, I don’t think I can be. So, I give thanks for my fellow pilgrims over these 11 days, especially our guide Ranya, our driver Nael, our musician Joey McGee, and our leaders Fr. Bill and Sandy Miller. Without this company of strangers now become friends, I would have missed what God had wanted me to see about my walk of faith all along.