Making pilgrimages seems to be in vogue for many these days who are motivated by religious tradition or a search for one's roots. Sacred shrines have been erected to entice a lucrative tourist trade. Many people make great sacrifices, endure hardship, and expend large sums of money to fulfill their spiritual aspirations. Devout Muslims will travel hundreds of miles on foot, by camel across deserts, by ship and plane to visit the sacred city of Mecca, located in Saudi Arabia. Mecca is traditionally the birthplace of the prophet Mohammed, and Muslims throughout the world will face and bow toward this sacred place five times a day. Inside the vast courtyard of the Great Mosque is the Kaaba, a cubed-shaped black stone which is covered with the kiswa, a black brocaded veil. Every Muslim hopes to make a hajj, or pilgrimage, to the shrine at least once.
Similarly, Christians will travel hundreds of miles to some religious shrine or sacred spot. Almost 3 million pilgrims--many of them sick and disabled--visit a shrine at Lourdes, France each year. In 1858 a young girl named Bernadette Soubirous, heard the roar of a great wind, and she looked up to see a vision of the Virgin Mary in a nearby grotto. She discovered a spring of water in the grotto, and a few days later a blind stonecutter bathed his eyes in the water and reported that he was cured of his blindness. Millions of people began flocking to the site in hopes of seeing the vision and being cured by the miraculous water. Inside the grotto are hundreds of votive candles and crutches left by pilgrims to the shrine.
Many Christians, at great expense, make pilgrimages to the Holy Land to "walk where Jesus walked." We have been counselled against this activity: "Do not seek to go back to the land where Christ's feet trod long ago. The curse (of God) rests upon Jerusalem. The Lord has obliterated those things which men would worship in and about Jerusalem. Human guides may point to this spot or that where Jesus made His abode, and travelers may cultivate feelings of awe and reverence..., and yet they have no certain knowledge that Jesus ever taught there or that His feet ever trod the soil" (Review and Herald, Feb. 25, 1896, p 114.)
We are all pilgrims in a "weary land" as were the Israelites in the wilderness. They wandered for forty years in a roundabout journey to the promised land, and only two individuals, Caleb and Joshua, out of the millions who left Egypt made it into the "land of milk and honey." The remnant people of God have been 160 years on their journey to the heavenly Canaan, and all the pioneers are dead. How long must we languish in this "slough of Despond." Isn't it about time we finished the work and ended "the pilgrimage"?
