We wish you a rich and blessed Good Friday and Easter!

We’ve had happy occasion to jump back into the pilgrimage experience in the past couple of days. Last night, Andrew delivered his “Pomegranates, Passes, and Pilgrims” talk complete with photos once again at the Eglise du Bouclier here in Strasbourg as a guest of the International Church of Strasbourg and the Anglican Chaplaincy.

And just this week we are appearing as the cover story on Christian Century. Andrew took the photo on the cover and you can see me blurry in the background! You can read the beginning of the article here.

The trip home started out the same as the inbound journey, from Rome back to Siena and then on to Florence and Bologna. But at that last city, Luther and his companion took a turn to the east, finishing their Italian sojourn through the cities of Modena (home to the original balsamic vinegar), Mantua (the setting of “The Taming of the Shrew”), Verona (the setting of “Romeo and Juliet”), Rovereto, Trent (home to the eventual Council of Trent, convened by the papal party in response to the Reformers), Salorno, Bolzano, Klausen (today Chiusa), Brixen (today Bressanone), and Sterzing (today Vipiteno). They crossed back to the north side of the Alps through Brenner Pass, bypassing Switzerland entirely by taking the path through the Austrian Alps. After Innsbruck and Seefeld, they re-entered Germany near Mittenwald and carried on to Peitung, Landsberg, and Augsburg. They made their final Danube crossing at the bridge at Donauwerth and picked up their previous route, finishing the journey through Nuremberg, Bamberg, and Coburg before arriving back home again in Erfurt.

Surely this intrigues those still as-yet-unidentified Catholics out there who intend to retrace Luther’s return journey…?

In other news, look for another article reflecting on our pilgrimage last fall in the April 5, 2011 issue of Christian Century! I’ll post a link to the issue when it’s published—I think you’ll be able to read the beginning of the piece online.

While we’ve had to accustom ourselves to the stationary life once more in the past two months, we have at least had the chance to write more about our experience. A version of Sarah’s lecture at Augsburg College and Lenoir-Rhyne University, “What Has Erfurt to Do with Rome?” will appear in the spring 2011 issue of Lutheran Forum; you can subscribe here if you’re interested (Sarah also is the editor of Lutheran Forum and can assure you it’s a great read at a great price!). Sarah and Andrew both have forthcoming articles about aspects of the pilgrimage… check back here in the next few weeks and we should have more details about when exactly they’ll appear.

Blessed Epiphany season to everyone!

The thing is, as we both realized in the course of our 1000 miles through Europe, even walking requires infrastructure, and now more than ever when the built world is designed for wheels and engines. Germans are great walkers, but they also have taken the time and money to put in place attractive and safe places to walk. Italians are known to adore their automobiles, but it would be hard to be a dissenter there and live—we can’t even count the number of times we saw sidewalks just end abruptly, usually for no apparent reason (though sometimes because it was at the border between two towns).

Yet even in places where walking is cultivated as a desirable activity, the infrastructure is designed for walking as leisure and sport, not walking as transportation. That’s why we couldn’t get through the Alps and Appennines in the amount of time we’d budgeted: the walking routes there, though they existed, were meandering for the sake of the scenery and didn’t shy away from climbing great heights. We did enjoy the scenery, and in principle wouldn’t mind the heights. But it was pretty clear that you didn’t walk those paths to get anywhere. Walking as transportation is just not a realistic option anymore. Our many American readers will undoubtedly recognize this situation on an even larger scale in our homeland!

Anyway, we have come to the end, we’re back home in Strasbourg, and we’re trying to figure out how to live stationary again. We’re brainstorming about continuing to post on this site about all things ecumenical, so please check back from time to time and see what we’ve got on offer. And if you haven’t yet, please take a look at the 2011 calendar we’ve put together with Andrew’s photos: great Christmas gifts!

And finally, thanks for all the time you’ve given to follow our journey. You definitely made the whole thing worthwhile!

Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ. Amen.

All of us here are already thinking ahead to our plans for the holiday.
And though Thanksgiving is celebrated as civic holiday,
it is only natural, and fitting, for Christian believers
to connect the holiday that’s all about gratitude with our faith.
Our most natural religious impulse is to thank God
for our lives, our family, our friends, our work, our homes, our country.
All these are indeed wonderful gifts of God.

In the Scriptures we heard today,
there are reports of two Thanksgiving feasts.
Both of these Thanksgiving feasts are set against a backdrop of disaster.
In the book of Nehemiah, the exile of Israel is still a recent memory.
Less than a hundred years have passed
since the Babylonian empire invaded, routed the Israelites,
rounded them up, and carried them away to a far-off land.
They didn’t know how to know the Lord at all
when they’d been stolen away from the land that He originally gave them.
But, in time, a new Persian emperor came to power;
some of the Israelites found favor with him;
and he granted Nehemiah the right to go home to Jerusalem,
rebuild the walls, and re-establish Jewish life in their capital city.
It was not an easy task—
sometimes the Israelites themselves were their own worst enemies in the process.
But at last the day came when the people of God
could assemble before their Lord once more.
Men and women alike were gathered for this solemn moment:
probably children and teenagers too, anyone who could understand.
The people were attentive:
they wanted to hear what Ezra the priest had to say.
And what Ezra had to say—was what God had to say.
He read them the book of the law of Moses,
words the Israelites had not heard in a very long time.
During the reading, interpreters of the law stood near at hand—
this was so important to the reading of the law
that Nehemiah records carefully all of the interpreters’ names
and even today we know exactly who they were.
They read from the book clearly,
and they helped the people to understand the Law,
and they gave the sense of it, so that the people understood the reading.
Understanding was crucial.
Notice the first reaction of the people, as they understood.
They wept.
After generations of starvation,
after decades of famine of the Word of God,
the Israelites heard again what their Lord had to say to them,
and they wept:
for sorrow, at their deprivation;
for guilt and alarm, at their failure to keep the law;
for the sheer jolt and shock of at last hearing from the Lord
Who had been silent among them for so long.
But then notice how Ezra the priest and Nehemiah the governor respond.
There is no shame, no sackcloth and ashes, no stern exhortations.
There is a simple statement of good news:
“This day is holy to the LORD your God.”
This day that you understood the Word of God: it is a holy day.
And then a command of joy:
“Do not mourn or weep. Cast off your sorrow, shame, and guilt.
Have a feast instead! Eat the fat and drink sweet wine.
Share with anyone who has nothing ready, for this day is holy to our Lord.
Do not be grieved, for the joy of the LORD is your strength.”
And that’s what they did: all the people went their way to eat and drink
and to send portions and to make great rejoicing,
because they had understood the words that were declared to them.

In the gospel of Luke, another disaster hovers over the scene.
Two of Jesus’ disciples are on the way to Emmaus,
and sorrow covers them like a shroud.
All they can think of is the squashing of their hopes
in the crucifixion of their beloved Lord.
When the risen Jesus draws up alongside them,
they do not recognize him, but only marvel that he doesn’t seem to know
about the calamitous events of the past weekend.
But he does know; he knows better than they do;
he not only knows, but he understands.
“Was it not necessary,” he asks these slow and foolish of heart,
“that the Christ should suffer these things and enter into his glory?”
And beginning with Moses and all the Prophets,
he interpreted to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning himself.
During Jesus’ interpretation and their growing understanding,
the disciples’ sorrow begins to lift.
They are gradually ready to feast once more.
They don’t want to lose Jesus’ company just yet,
so they invite him to share the evening meal with them.
It is at the holiest moment of the feast,
when Jesus takes the bread and blesses it,
that their understanding comes to fruition,
their sadness chased away forever.
Like their ancestor Israelites assembled with Ezra and Nehemiah,
the Emmaus disciples rejoiced
because they had understood the words that were declared to them.
Their hearts burned within them while Jesus opened the Scriptures to them.
In this feast of the Word, they could see at last their risen Lord.

So it shall be for you also, people of God.
Listen attentively to the Word of the Lord,
strive to understand,
let the Word and the words of God burn in your hearts.
Give thanks for the feast of the Word,
rejoice and do not be sad,
go forth and make a great feast!
For the joy of the Lord is your strength.
Amen.

But we are still thrown into civilization from time to time. We joined the throngs at the theater for the opening of the new Harry Potter movie. I drove a car for the first time in two years (we don’t have or need one in Strasbourg). And yesterday we visited Roanoke’s public radio station to record an interview for travel writer (and Lutheran) Rick Steves’s radio show. It was a blast! We only met “on the air,” since Rick and his crew are stationed in Seattle, but he was friendly and enthusiastic about our project. And it was just plain interesting to find out how these things are done.

The interview will air around Easter time—we’ll let you know the exact date when they let us know—but in the meanwhile if you are interested to know more about Rick Steves and Martin Luther, the two can be had in one package in this little video that the former made about the life of the latter.

And one more preview: in the next few days we hope to have calendars with Andrew’s photography from our trip available for purchase online. Quite a number of people wrote in asking for calendars and books. It’ll take awhile to pull off the book, but the calendars are on the way, so stay tuned!

Comically enough, the most persistent question we’ve gotten—both on the road in Europe, and at our American speaking appearances—has been how many pairs of shoes we went through! The answer: Andrew wore exactly one pair of Crocs, and I traded in one pair of Keen’s sneaker sandals for a second pair about ¾ of the way through our trip. That’s it! Don’t let anyone tell you that you have to have “sturdy” shoes for long-distance hiking. Loose and comfortable is a much better option.

There were also lots of great questions after dinner about the spirituality of pilgrimage and the nature of ecumenism. One suspicion that has been confirmed for us in this whole project is that the people of God are hungry for the unity of the church, but what they have been told or what they have perceived of ecumenism doesn’t do justice to that desire. I myself didn’t know much of anything about it before I went to work at the Institute in Strasbourg. So we will definitely be considering ways to continue to spread the word about the rich and fascinating history and intellectual development of the ecumenical movement even though our walk is over.

In the meanwhile we have been enjoying an unusually lovely November in Virginia. The hills are nearly all gray and bare, but the fields are still covered with blond grasses, the sky is blue, and red-winged blackbirds flit about all over the place. Out for a drive the other day we stopped by a place where some folks were making apple butter over an open fire with a very long-handled wooden stirrer. Hunters are frustrated by the warm weather and abundant acorn crop, keeping all the deer happily bedded down in place. Turkey is for sale everywhere. It’s just ordinary American life, but after two years living abroad, we can recognize its peculiar charm that much better.

Anyway, a very blessed Christ the King Sunday to you all. Crown him with many crowns!