1. Pilgrimage to Paradise: Changing Destinations

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Paul Tripp writes: "Perhaps we can find no more real and present argument for heaven than the angst that we all carry in the face of the temporary and dissatisfying awes of the present." He then quotes C. S. Lewis: "If I find in myself a desire which no experience in this world can satisfy, the most probable explanation is that I was made for another world."

Placing our focus in life on eternity's destination changes what life looks like as it is lived out with anticipation of our arrival there.

Blessed are those whose strength is in you, who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the Valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs; the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go on from strength to strength till each appears before God in Zion. —Psalm 84:5-7

When Peter writes his first letter, he addresses it to "…exiles scattered." 

"Peter, an apostle of Jesus Christ,

To God’s elect, exiles scattered throughout the provinces of Pontus, Galatia, Cappadocia, Asia and Bithynia, who have been chosen according to the foreknowledge of God the Father, through the sanctifying work of the Spirit, to be obedient to Jesus Christ and sprinkled with his blood:

Grace and peace be yours in abundance."

Being a pilgrim is not quite the same as being part of a group known as "...exiles scattered," the description we have of those to whom Peter wrote. Perhaps these exiles weren't pilgrims literally, voluntarily setting out to visit a distant holy place, but Peter's aim was to encourage them to be pilgrims metaphorically. He wanted them to turn their journeys from tragedies to triumphs by keeping their eyes fixed on the right destination. He wanted them not to think of themselves as homeless and destitute refugees but as those called to a spiritual journey.

There have always been pilgrims and pilgrimages. Perhaps the most easily recognizable picture of a pilgrim for westerners, and closest to the context of 1 Peter, are those who escaped England in the 1600s to come to the New World.  The Puritans, also known as Pilgrims, left England in 1620 seeking religious freedom. Whether they thought of America as a "holy place" might be stretch. But they hoped to make it one.

Peter is writing to those who have been forced to leave their homes, livelihoods and communities because they are believers in Jesus. Persecution scattered them to many remote parts of the Roman world. That reality would be enough to depress most of us. It might even cause us to pause and consider toning down our Christian rhetoric, or even abandoning Christianity altogether. After all, what was to guarantee that this same persecution would not follow them to wherever it was that they eventually settled? Rome had its tentacles everywhere. There was no safe place, no harbour, no refuge. The world was a mean place.

Satisfaction, hope, peace, safety are all elusive. Like the wind they touch our lives but themselves can't be touched and held. All that we value rusts, decays, and dies. Some, looking within, see only hopelessness and wonder if it worthwhile going on, or if it matters how they go on and live their lives.

I imagine Peter's refugees felt the same way. Would they read his message and be encouraged to change how they looked at themselves, what they considered to be home, their ultimate destination, and how they would live their lives in view of that revised focus? Would they turn temporal loss into spiritual gain? Would they become pilgrims?

Will you? Will I?