June 16, 2003

JUST PASSING THROUGH

John Wayne had a distinctive style in his roles as a strong, quiet good guy in Hollywood westerns. One of his most memorable lines includes his reference to someone he is confronting as “Pilgrim.” (I’m sure some Messenger reader will be able to tell me in what film this originated.) I can just about hear the Duke say in an understated but menacing tone, “Steady, Pilgrim!”

What did he mean by calling someone “Pilgrim”? We know of the Pilgrims as the group of English settlers who came to these shores because of religious persecution and founded the Massachusetts Bay Colony in the 1620s. Where did their name come from?

My dictionary tells me the English word “pilgrim” comes from the Latin peregrinus, which means “foreign, strange.” The Latin word is itself a combination of two words: egressus (from which we get our word “egress” = exit), which means “going out,” and per, which means “through.” Pilgrims are people who are just passing through. They don’t come from here, and they don’t plan to stay. John Wayne was reminding the questionable stranger that he didn’t belong in town and had better move on.

That’s the attitude many English Puritans faced when they tried to reform the State Church. They were harassed and persecuted—treated like aliens. So they moved on. A group of these Puritans emigrated to Holland where there was more religious liberty, first living in Amsterdam then in Leyden. But the group’s focus later became fixed on the New World, across the Atlantic, to which they ultimately journeyed on the Nina, Pinta and Santa Maria.

Some people gave these Puritans the nickname”Pilgrims,” because they never seemed to settle in one place. They weren’t even sure Massachusetts would become their permanent home, and they still saw themselves as pilgrims more than as settlers. I’m sure some among the Native American tribes wished they’d just keep moving!

In Hebrews chapter 11 we find the great “Faith Hall of Fame, “ with a review of Old Testament heroes. The author summarizes:
“All of these died in faith without having received the promises, but from a distance they saw and greeted them. They confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.”
(Hebrews 11:13)

And we are encouraged in Peter’s letter to follow their lead:
“Beloved, I urge you as aliens and pilgrims to abstain from the desires of the flesh that wage war against the soul.”

We tend to settle down in this comfortable life, forgetting that it is only a temporary stopping place and that its twisted values can attack our soul and undermine our faith. We need to live by the old gospel song:
“This world is not my home; I’m just a-passing through;
My treasures are laid up somewhere beyond the blue.
The angels beckon me from heaven’s open door,
And I can’t feel at home in this world anymore.”

Through harsh life circumstances, God often has to remind us, John Wayne-like, “Pilgrim, just keep moving on!”

–Pastor George Van Alstine