Jerusalem

From today's first reading from the Acts of the Apostles:

For even though they found no grounds for a death sentence,
they asked Pilate to have him put to death,
and when they had accomplished all that was written about him,
they took him down from the tree and placed him in a tomb.
But God raised him from the dead,
and for many days he appeared to those
who had come up with him from Galilee to Jerusalem.
These are now his witnesses before the people.

If we want to be witnesses to the Resurrection, we must be willing to travel with the Lord from Galilee to Jerusalem. Galilee is where we're from, where we know how things work and how to relate. It's home.

Jerusalem, on the other hand, is the place where the Name of God has chosen to dwell. It is the place where God's glory dwells in the Scriptures, the Sacraments, and the beauty of the Liturgy. But it is also the place where the Lord is tried and executed for failing to live up to the human expectations of deity. And this is why being willing to go to Jerusalem often means going to place where Jesus Christ is crucified in the poor and suffering of the world.

To see the Risen Lord, we must hit the road, leaving the place that's home and where we "get it," and make our way to Jerusalem.