Christ in the Uncomfortable

We are experiencing the fullness of winter weather here in the Holy Land. Today was a cold, wet, and stormy day. Despite the dreariness of the day, many of us searched for ways to celebrate the Lord's day. Some of us journeyed through the rain (and hail!) to experience authentic middle eastern cuisine. Some of us journeyed to various hidden chapels in the city to spend some quiet prayer with the Lord. Others spent the day reading or relaxing, with thunder clashes as background noise to an otherwise quiet day.

We are experiencing the reality that pilgrimage is not always a bright, ethereal string of experiences and events. Pilgrimage does not always live up the fantasy of constant scenic landscapes and picture perfect skylines. There have already been plenty of those already. Today just isn't one of those. Today is a lesson in pilgrimage as an experience of rumination. We aren't merely tourists that hop on a bus and go home when the environment gets tough. Yet we get to experience the Holy Land as an all too normal, sometimes uncomfortable, place. Yet we stay here. And the truth is...so did Jesus. God loves us so much, that He chose to descend into the uncomfortable. He chose not to leave us in our uncomfortable state alone. He came here! He came to be with us.

As we celebrated the Lord's resurrection, we were graced by these uncomfortable experiences. They served as a reminder of the very reality the Lord chose to come into to be with us. So we walked his uncomfortable footsteps and he walked with us, making possible a path of perfect love. Love that endures the uncomfortable and promises a brighter day of resurrection.