I just returned from two weeks in the Holy Land and it was all the superlatives: extraordinary, exhausting, eye-opening, HOT! It was a privilege and an adventure. (And I met the best people!)
Before I departed on my trip, my sister said to me, “Please don’t come home and use your trip to be insufferable, “Well, when I was in the Holy Land…”
I reminded her that I’d traveled to the BYU Jerusalem Center as a student in 1989. So I have nearly four decades without flaunting my privilege.
Because traveling to the Holy Land is a tremendous privilege—one that requires a great deal of time, money, and opportunity. It’s simply not possible for everyone to make the journey.
Some religions do require a pilgrimage of faith. Every adult Muslim who is physically and financially capable is obligated to perform the Hajj to Mecca once in their lifetime. Hindus and Buddhist also make pilgrimages to rivers, temples, and places associated with their religious founders.
Yet Christianity makes an almost radical counterclaim: you don’t need to visit the Holy Land to walk with Jesus.
And yes, I felt Jesus while in Jerusalem. But no more than in my own home while bathing a baby, or in our very plain chapel taking a humble sacrament of bread and water.
Jesus was actually born into a pilgrimage religion. The Torah commands Israelite men to appear before the Lord three times a year at Passover, Shavuot, and Sukkot. Once a permanent temple was built, that command meant pilgrimage to Jerusalem and the Temple.1
These pilgrimages were a matter of discussion during Christ’s ministry. The Samaritan woman at the well asked Jesus: Where is the right place to worship? This mountain or Jerusalem?
And Jesus answered:
“The hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, nor yet at Jerusalem, worship the Father…. The true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth.”
—John 4:21, 23
Christ makes ordinary places sacred with His presence.
There’s something extraordinary about standing on the Mount of Olives looking towards Jerusalem and knowing that Jesus also looked toward that city. We can follow him down the hill, then up the steps to the Temple Mount. There is holiness in Capernaum, Bethlehem, and the Sea of Galilee. The Holy Sepulchre and the Western Wall hum with devotion from millennia of sincere prayers.
Place does matter. As a people, we love to visit church history sites, we yearn for the Holy Land, and I think we all want to visit the Salt Lake Temple open house next year. (I’m going to be a volunteer! Come stay at my house.)
But our discipleship does not depend on traveling to sacred sites. It is lived in how we worship God and how we treat those around us.
After two weeks of travel and several flight delays, I am finally home.
Home to where my children need me, my neighbor wants to talk about something important, the weeds in my yard need tending, and I’m aching to go to the temple.
Jerusalem is sacred. But home, home is sacred too.
When the Temple was destroyed in 70 AD the prescribed pilgrimage festivals could no longer be held at the Temple. While it is meaningful for Jews to visit Jerusalem and the Western Wall, it is neither required nor considered temple worship.
