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including Jesus and His disciples, would have followed the Jordan River south to Jericho nearthe Dead Sea, then taken this road up—and up—to Jerusalem. The Dead Sea is the lowest place on earth at 1,300 feet below sea level, and Jerusalem is situated at 2,550 feet above sea level. It requires hard work and sacrifice to worship God. It’s much easier to stay home and forget the long journey, but according to Jewish law, the people were required to go three times a year for the three annual festivals as soon as they were old enough to walk. Moses had warned the Israelites that they were in danger of forgetting their history and their God once they settled down in homes and villages. And whenever Israel backslid into idolatry, they stopped making these pilgrimages. The national revivals begun by good kings such as Hezekiah and Josiah always began by renewing the celebration of Passover and the other feasts.

Mount Zion Today
    In each of the three pilgrimage festivals, the Israelites reenacted a portion of their history so they would never forget it. At Passover they relived the night in Egypt when they daubedblood on their doorposts so that the angel of death would pass over their homes. For Pentecost, they reenacted the day that God gave the Torah on Mount Sinai and they responded, “Whatever the Lord says, we will do” (see Deuteronomy 5:27). During the Feast of Tabernacles, they ate and slept in flimsy huts, open to the skies, to recall their desert wanderings. The three pilgrimages also reminded them of their ancestor Abraham who journeyed with God beneath the open skies his entire life. That long walk demonstrated that our spiritual life will always be a continuing journey of faith.
    Our bus continues to climb up and up. Soon we reach a dividing line between the dry desert and the green highlands. The mountains around Jerusalem form a boundary line—green to the west, thanks to the moist Mediterranean air; dry and brown to the east, where that moisture never reaches. This forms a visual picture of a life with God and a life without Him. Without the water of God’s Word, without Christ the living water, there is only death and desolation. As the pilgrims ascended on their journey, climbing up from death to life, they experienced a visual picture of what God’s Word meant in their lives—and in our lives.
    I’m told that the Temple roof, adorned with the equivalent of $3 billion dollars in gold, was visible from a distance, shining in the sunlight as pilgrims approached. Jerusalem itself is a golden city, constructed from the creamy golden limestone found in that region. I can understand the pilgrims’ excitement and anticipation when they finally glimpsed the city and the Temple in the distance. After the long journey, after the hard climb, they would be able to relax and rest and celebrate the festivals with feasting and joy. In describing the feasts in the Torah, God says over and over, “Rejoice!” And inall of the feasts that I’ve celebrated with my Jewish friends, I’ve eaten until I was stuffed, laughed until my sides ached, and gone to bed with peace in my heart. It’s the same joy and relief I experience on Easter morning after the somber soul-searching of Good Friday—death transformed into life.
    The annual pilgrimages to Jerusalem remind us that our spiritual life is not only a journey but a cycle of journeys. We’ll never fully arrive until we reach heaven. But while we’re here on earth we can continue to move toward a higher goal, “so that the body of Christ may be built up until we all reach unity in the faith and in the knowledge of the Son of God and become mature, attaining to the whole measure of the fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:12–13). Up and up. It’s important not to stay home like spiritual infants, resting on past glories and miracles, content with the relationship we had with Christ when we first became born again. It’s important that we keep moving toward God,