ON PILGRIMAGE
November 17, 2021
Prayer: Dear Lord, I am grateful that You love me and care about my life and help me. Amen
Scripture: For seven days celebrate the Feast to the Lord your God at the place the Lord will choose. For the Lord your God will bless you in all your harvest and in all the work of your hands, and your joy will be complete. Three times a year all your men must appear before the Lord your God at the place He will choose: at the Feast of Unleavened Bread, the Feast of Weeks and the Feast of Tabernacles. No man should appear before the Lord empty-handed: Each of you must bring a gift in proportion to the way the Lord your God has blessed you. Deuteronomy 16:15-17 NIV
For thousands of years, people have traveled to foreign lands and to holy places on pilgrimages. These pilgrims travel for a variety of reasons, many religious. The Israelites were instructed by God to make a pilgrimage to the Temple in Jerusalem three times a year to appear before God for three Festivals: the Festival of Unleavened Bread or Passover; Shavuot, called the Festival of Weeks, which occurs 50 days after Passover (Christians refer to this day as Pentecost); and finally, Sukkot (Succoth): known as the Feast of Booths or Feast of Tabernacles. During this holiday, the Jews would build a temporary booth-like structure where they lived for the week. This represents the huts and tents the Israelites lived in for 40 years while they wandered in the wilderness. Each day has special readings from the Torah, ceremonies, meals, observances, rules, and even dancing.
I do not want to oversimplify the deep meanings of the Feast of Tabernacles. I am very interested and respectful of Jewish culture and traditions, but I wanted to tie together three of the main concepts of this festival with our upcoming pilgrim-focused holiday, Thanksgiving.
As I said before, the Jewish pilgrims built simple huts or tents to reside in, remembering God’s provision for the Israelites in the wilderness in addition to the focus on God’s provision over the past year. Similarly, the pilgrims who settled in Plymouth were thankful to God for His provision in getting them through a very difficult time. The second lesson is the reminder of the vanities of life. Pursuit of God and His ways are the only pursuits worthwhile in life. Take a minute to weigh the time we spend pursuing so many other things. How wonderful it is that we have a holiday which causes us to pause to thank God, realizing that all we have and all we accomplish are only by His hand. The last similarity I want to target is their prayer for adequate rainfall for growth of vegetation for next year. As we sit down for a delicious feast at our own Thanksgiving table, we are thankful for the food we have received all year long. We are reminded that there are millions of people who go to bed hungry every night. God is our life-giver and sustainer. We also pray for growth personally, spiritually, and professionally. We pray for God to nurture our schools and rely on Him to adequately supply all that we need for a successful year.
Merriam-Webster’s Online Dictionary defines “pilgrimage” as
1: a journey of a pilgrim; especially: one to a shrine or a sacred place:
As discussed above. It is also defined as
2: the course of life on earth
You see, we are all pilgrims and life is a pilgrimage. For those of us who know Christ as our Lord and Savior, we are on a journey that will lead us to the most holy place — Heaven.
My prayer for you is that you would bless and be blessed on your pilgrimage.
If you are planning to teach the “Thanksgiving lesson” please teach it correctly – there is no law against it. For information about legal lesson plans for Thanksgiving visit www.GTBE.org (Gateways to Better Education).
Copyright Kathy Branzell. To connect with the author, email [email protected]
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