A Holy Dream, A Holy War

Abstract

This article reflects a pilgrimage to the Holy Land on September 2023, a journey interrupted by the outbreak of the Israel–Hamas war on 7 October 2023. Framed by the tension between a lifelong "holy dream" and the realities of a "bloody war," the article explores how pilgrimage, sacred geography, and biblical imagination are reshaped when experienced within an active conflict zone. The reflection moves from reverence and spiritual encounter during the Feast of Tabernacles (Sukkot) to fear, uncertainty, and evacuation as violence unfolded around Jerusalem, the West Bank, and Gaza.

Writing as a native Fijian wo-man, a Candidate for the Ministry of the Word in the Uniting Church in Australia, I reflect on the ways in which inherited biblical imaginations are challenged by lived realities of those who inhabit the land today. Conversations with local people, experiences of military mobilisation and lockdown, and subsequent engagement with historical and theological scholarship reveal the Holy Land as both a sacred landscape and a contested political space marked by competing narratives, displacement, suffering, and enduring hope. The article argues that Christian pilgrimage cannot remain detached from these contemporary realities but must engage them with theological humility, historical awareness, and a commitment to justice and peace. Situated within the witness of the Uniting Church in Australia and informed by decolonial and contextual theological perspectives, this reflection invites readers to reconsider what it means to encounter God in a land where biblical memory and present human suffering coexist.