Student Choice
December 1, 2016
“Blessed are those whose strength
is in you, whose hearts are set on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley
of Baka, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with
pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”
Psalm 84:5-7
To set one’s heart on
pilgrimage is to understand that there is both a spiritual and physical aspect
to it. The very existence of mankind means that there is a birth, living, and
dying –a beginning and an end and then everything that is in between. There is
a journey that progresses through different landscapes, through the valley, the
spring, through the rains, and pools. Yet the heart has been set on the
journey. Yet, vs. 7 reminds us that this is not simply a journey that continues
forever. That would create stagnation, it would cease to even be a journey. Rather,
this is a journey towards the meeting of a divine God. Throughout much of
history and religion, pilgrimages have been made to sacred spaces, the place
where martyrs have died or a shrine built in a church. Yet, these pilgrimages
seem to simply be a symbol for the greater pilgrimage that man is going on,
where man is on a journey to meet God. What we now see a blurred image, as if
in a mirror, we will see face to face. However, I do not think that discredits
the physical landscapes we pass through on a pilgrimage. There are landscapes
whose beauty seem to reflect the divine. And according to the psalmist, God
gives strength in the valley and by the springs, in the easy and the hard, in
the peaceful and the strenuous.
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