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I spent the past 10 days in Israel. It’s a fascinating place. In addition to all the amazing biblical and historical sites, the land is teeming with people from all over the world. People come from the 4 corners of the earth yearning to see and experience God. That’s what pilgrims do. They leave the comfort of their homes and step outside the habitual rhythms of their daily lives, hoping to connect with God in a meaningful and transformative way.
Today’s story tells of just such a pilgrimage. It’s an encounter between Jesus and a Samaritan woman in John chapter 4. Their discussion is interesting enough, but it’s what happens afterwards that intrigues me. She is so taken by the encounter that she returns to her hometown and issues an invitation to the people there. She begs the people to “come and see” John 4:29; to come on a pilgrimage to see a man who changed her life. And so, they went and saw for themselves. In the end, the people were so transformed upon meeting Jesus they said “it is no longer because of what you said that we believe, for we have heard for ourselves…”. John 4:42
For most of our lives we go to church and we listen to someone tell us about God. We are relatively passive learners when it comes to how we do faith. And yet, what this story suggests is that faith is meant to be a full-bodied participatory experience. We are meant to “come and see”. People sometimes say to me, “you don’t have to go to church to be a Christian.” That’s true, but if there’s one thing I learned watching pilgrims in Israel this past week, it’s that we stand a far better chance of encountering God’s transformative power if come and see for ourselves; if we get involved in the process of a living faith, not just a listening faith. The options for pilgrimage are endless, there’s going to Israel of course, but there are other ways we can “come and see” without getting on a plane; there’s attending our local church, participating in a Bible study, reading a daily devotional, having a regular practice of prayer and meditation or participating in a small group with others who are seeking after God. There are so many ways for us to get off the sidelines and begin a pilgrimage of our own. I invite you to look for a way to “come and see” in order to discover or perhaps rediscover the transformative power of God in your life.
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