The Destination
Luke 19:28-40
For the past few weeks, our church has been following a worship theme based off of a movie called “The Way” which follows a grieving father and his growing number of friends who sojourn with him as he takes the ancient pilgrimage route of the Camino in Spain toward Santiago de Compostela.
This pilgrimage fundamentally originated in Christianity as routes that european pilgrims would take to venerate the supposed remains of St. James, the brother of Jesus, who is said to lie in repose at the basilica in Santiago de Compostela.
People take this pilgrimage for different reasons. Some take it for spiritual and religious reasons. Some take it as a part of a broader desire to travel the world. Some take it seeking transformation. Pilgrims receive passports that can be stamped by the refugios and stopping points on the way of this pilgrimage. And when pilgrims arrive in Santiago, they can go to an office where they receive a formal certificate for completing the pilgrimage if it is confirmed that their originating point as a walking pilgrim was at least 100 km away from Santiago de Compostela.
One interesting thing that happened in The Way was a stop in a town where the main character, Thomas, was robbed by a romani teenager. At the resolution of this, after the boys father reprimands his son and takes Thomas and his companions into his community for the night, was the advice the father gave Thomas before he left. Instead of ending the pilgrimage at Santiago de Compostela, Thomas was encouraged to keep going east toward the ocean. This is known as the Fisterra and Muxía Way.
The movie ends with Thomas at the sea, spreading the last portions of his son’s ashes into the sea that people in the middle ages prior to exploring the world believed was the end of the world.
Every time we get to our destination, we learn that the journey actually isn’t over. Thomas’ friends followed him beyond Santiago de Compostela to the coast. And when there, we see them depart on their next journey one by one as people still in progress. We encounter Thomas as a transformed person, from a well off opthamologist content to playing golf and staying put to someone who wants to keep traveling. The movie ends with Thomas in another foreign country and on the move.
His journey didn’t end. When Jesus arrived in Jerusalem amidst palms and crowds, his journey wasn’t over either. And when his body was taken down from the cross we know that even then his journey wasn’t complete.
And that journey continues through us today as we remember the story and live out our faith in the world which is also so very much in progress.
Life is a journey with more than one destination. May we have the courage not to keep still, but continue forward.
