Back in Time: Israel Pilgrimage 2023

What’s the difference between a Pilgrimage and a Trip?

Ben Dockery | Est. 3-4 minutes

I want to tell you three things I learned from the pilgrimage we took to Israel this summer. But first, I want to start with what might feel like an unrelated thought... Hang with me.

In his book, Saint Thomas Aquinas, G K. Chesterton compares the revered medieval theologian of the Catholic church with the famed St. Francis of Assisi. To start, their appearances clashed. Francis was “as thin as a thread and vibrant as a bowstring.” St Thomas was “a huge heavy bull of a man, fat and slow and quiet.” Francis is also known for austere poverty and renouncing himself of worldly goods while St Thomas is known for writing and a life of the intellect and libraries. (Read an excerpt from the longer comparison of the two friars). Still, Chesterton suggests they made a similar contribution - it can be difficult to recognize because while they lived at the same time, they spoke to different errors in the church. What Francis was doing with nature is what St. Thomas was doing with philosophy – both were doing the same thing for Christianity, which was saving it from spirituality.

In summary, Chesterton uses this lovely phrase, “it is best to say the truth in its simplest form; that they both reaffirmed the Incarnation, by bringing God back to earth.”

This is when you ask, what in the world does this have to do with what I learned in Israel? I’m glad you asked. Three thoughts from our travels all relate to this idea of “bringing God back to earth.”

Trips are not pilgrimages.

This was a distinction I had not considered but was repeated by Mike Woodruff, the Lakelight board chair, and leader of our pilgrimage. He first made this distinction in our preparation meetings, but it did not sink in until we were on the ground. It would be possibly to go to the same geographical locations and download the same information, but not aim toward a deeper faith commitment. In other words, even in Israel, you could leave God in heaven.

Bringing God back to earth engages our imaginations and hearts. It raises new questions. At one point, our group asked, what it would be like to go back in time - what would it be like to have Jesus as your tour guide? (More on that at the end.) Lakelight elevates imagination as a key to learning (one of three core emphases) and we believe faith is bolstered through immersive learning experiences. In Israel, we hoped to get a little dust on our feet by following the terrain rabbi Jesus walked and listening afresh to the wisdom he taught. Additionally, the time was structured in a way that people could experience the catalytic power of the gospel through sites, teaching, reflection, and cohort discussions.

If not all trips are pilgrimages, it could equally be argued that not all pilgrimages are trips. You don’t have to go on an Israel trip to be on pilgrimage. You can be intentional about any travel or experience in your life by starting with the question: how can we spend this time seeing God’s handiwork and becoming more like Jesus? 

Christianity is wildly concrete.

Although I pray for God’s will to be done on earth all the time, my disposition is to make Jesus and his teachings highly spiritual (non-earthly). Somewhere in my mind, all the metaphorical language about vines and branches, water and wine, builders and laborers, camels and sheep exist in a theoretical world. Obviously, some of this is due to 21st century American life, but I was reminded on our pilgrimage how unsanitized, how earthy Jesus’ life would have been. 

It is difficult to walk behind Jesus, to follow in his footsteps. I mean that literally. We climbed up and down mountainsides that didn’t comply with ADA standards. I learned to watch our guide instinctually locate every tree that offered shade to find relief from the heat. I learned to watch my step as roadways lay littered with loose rocks. As we trekked the ancient stones of Jerusalem, the same steps occupied by Roman soldiers and Jesus’ followers, the concrete reality of Isaiah and Peter’s “stone” object lessons became real stones our iPhones could capture in a photo.

I came home more intent on seeing God in the sidewalks and steps at my house. I want eyes to see the cars and traffic lights, the desks and screens, the shows and music, food and drink in my life as God’s handiwork. I want to be saved from my own over-spiritualizing. It sounds silly saying it, but it doesn’t have to be in the clouds (or world of ideas) to be Christian. 

Christ will return.

As St. Thomas and Francis helped Christianity avoid spirituality by bringing God back to earth, Israel reminded me that Jesus said he is coming back to earth. This was not just foreign to the first hearers, but still seems mistaken to modern minds. 

Chesterton describes the impact of a saints life: “The Saint is a medicine because he is an antidote. Indeed that is why the saint is often a martyr; he is mistaken for a poison because he is an antidote. He will generally be found restoring the world to sanity by exaggerating whatever the world neglects, which is by no means always the same element in every age…. Therefore it is the paradox of history that each generation is converted by the saint who contradicts it most.” 

Might read that twice - worth more reflection in our day. 

We gathered the final day for reflection near a rock that some think is the last point Jesus placed his feet on earth. There, the dusty disciples asked him, “Lord, are you at this time going to restore the kingdom to Israel?” 

Jesus didn’t answer that question. Instead, he continued his promise that it is better He leaves and sends the Spirit. God’s Spirit will be a better tour guide for the task of work and witness they had before them. They needed to disperse. And, the same Spirit that raised Jesus from the dead and launch the first disciples is at work in us. 

We don’t need to go back in time, we need to live by faith as we await the return of God back to earth, of all things made new. That life is an antidote the world still needs.

© Ben Dockery | This article was first published in Lakelight Monthly, July 2023 Edition