Walking the Way: Pilgrimage Through Lent

Pilgrimage on the other hand, with pilgrimage, the road is the point. Pilgrimage transforms us. It's not about arriving, but about walking. It's about the blisters as well as the beauty. It's about strangers who become companions. It's about questions that surface when we're not so distracted with our carefully curated itineraries. The slow steady rhythm of walking pilgrimage, it teaches about our own souls. It's less about the destination and more about the becoming. [00:49:20] (43 seconds)  #RoadIsThePoint

So here's the invitation for you. Thank you. This season of Lent, this six weeks as we head toward the Cross Of Calvary. The invitation is is not to walk the road as if we have it all figured out or to already be transformed, but to walk one step at a time, one yellow arrow at a time, one day at a time, trusting that the path has everything we need for the walking of the way. [01:01:54] (33 seconds)  #OneStepAtATime

And so the invitation during this Lent is to practice walking the way of Jesus. Now, there's an ancient tradition with the Camino De Santiago. At the Cruz De Ferro, pilgrims will take stones, stones from their home, and these stones represent something burdensome, And they carry the stones with them in their packs the entire way until they reach the Cruz De Ferro, which means the iron cross. [01:05:14] (32 seconds)  #CaminoStoneTradition

You'll leave it here, you'll leave it for good. That's something that has weighed you down and prevented you from following Christ the fullest way that God knows that you can. So I invite you sometime between now and Easter Sunday to simply drop the rock. It won't be a part of the service. You can drop it before you take your seat next Sunday or sometime during the week or after service you can come forward and quietly place your stone. [01:06:44] (33 seconds)  #LeaveYourRock

and they place it underneath the iron cross, and they leave it behind. And so my invitation to you quite literally is to take a stone. We have some in our friendship for you. You can pick up after service today or maybe there's a rock that you have at home and perhaps next Sunday or some Sunday during the season of Lent, you can help us create our Karen with the stone that you will drop. [01:06:13] (31 seconds)  #TakeAStone

And they'll take that stone, and it represents their burden, their grief, their sorrow, something that they've carried with them for far too long. And it's been weighing on them this whole journey in their backpacks, it's not a light thing to carry a rock around. Trust me, I've been doing it for the past few minutes now. And they take that stone representing that burden, [01:05:46] (27 seconds)  #BurdensInTheBackpack

We have no guarantees. Jesus knew this and Jesus said, no. Again, quoting scripture, refusing to bow down, refusing to jump, refusing to turn the stone into bread. Three temptations, three invitations to stray from the path. This took a rootedness, didn't it? He was rooted in scripture, he could call on scripture, He could recite scripture, and being rooted in that tradition, in faith, and in scripture, he was able to withstand the temptations put before him. [00:58:44] (40 seconds)  #RootedInScripture

So let's look at each of those temptations briefly. The first one was the devil showed him a stone and said, hey Jesus, you're hungry. You have the power, you can turn this stone into bread. No one will ever know. Come on Jesus, just do it. Just turn the stone into bread, and this temptation could be considered a temptation towards self sufficiency. The whisper in Jesus' ears was, you don't need anyone's help. You can do this by yourself. You don't need community. [00:55:38] (41 seconds)  #ResistSelfSufficiency