What is a Pilgrimage? According to James Harpur in his book Sacred Tracks: 2000 Years of Christian Pilgrimage: “The first pilgrims associated with the Christian faith were arguably the Magi, the ‘three wise men’ who, according to the Gospel of Matthew, journeyed from the east to Bethlehem, guided by a star, to pay homage to ‘the one who has been born of the Jews’. Their story contains some of the classic elements of pilgrimage. First and foremost, there was a journey. In their case, this would have been a long one from Iran, since according to the fifth century Greek historian Herodotus the Magi were in fact a Median tribe who lived within the Persian Empire and who were renowned as soothsayers and astrologers. Like pilgrimage before and after them, the men were anxious to experience a source - for Christians the source - of sacred awe.
“What distinguishes the Magi’s journey from most other later pilgrimages was that they came to see a living being, not the relics of someone who had died. But their instinct was still the same; the desire for contact with a source of holiness.” Following the Magi, Christian pilgrims from all over the world have been journeying to the Land of Israel, the source of their spiritual heritage, for nearly 2000 years. Bible in hand, they’ve walked in the places where Jesus walked and prayed where He preached and prayed, and many experience a feeling of divine grace, or salvation, along with inner peace and a strengthened belief in their faith. There is no better place on earth than the Holy Land for Christians to feel the events of Jesus’ life coming alive before their eyes and in their hearts. Nowhere is His life better documented than in the Holy Bible and now, more than ever, the call to follow in Jesus’ Holyland footsteps is reverberating around the Christian world.
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