Sermon for December 7th, 2025
Luke 1:39-45 (NT p. 57)
1 In those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country, 40 where she entered the house of Zechariah and greeted Elizabeth. 41 When Elizabeth heard Mary’s greeting, the child leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit 42 and exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb. 43 And why has this happened to me, that the mother of my Lord comes to me? 44 For as soon as I heard the sound of your greeting, the child in my womb leaped for joy. 45 And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Luke 2:1-7 (NT p. 58)
1 In those days a decree went out from Caesar Augustus that all the world should be registered. 2 This was the first registration and was taken while Quirinius was governor of Syria. 3 All went to their own towns to be registered. 4 Joseph also went from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem, because he was descended from the house and family of David. 5 He went to be registered with Mary, to whom he was engaged and who was expecting a child. 6 While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child. 7 And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth and laid him in a manger, because there was no place in the guest room.
Advent(ure), Part I
Today we’re talking about adventures and journeys, so I’m reminded of a famous saying: The journey of a thousand miles begins with… (go ahead, finish the saying for me!)
Really…is that how the saying goes? I thought it was more like this…
Or this…
Or even this…
If you’re a fashionista, I suppose it would go like this…
Or if you’re a history buff, you might like this one…
Or an animal lover…
Personally, as a parent of three children, this is my favorite:
In the children’s message last week, I talked to the kids about the words advent and adventure, which both come from the same Latin root. If you know Spanish or French, you’ve already got a head start here: The Latin verb *venire* is the same as the Spanish and French verb *venir* which means “to come.” Adding the preposition *ad* in the front of the word (advenir) gives us “to come to” or “to come near.”
Putting that verb in noun form gives us *adventus* (and in English, advent) meaning “the coming,” or “the arrival.” Putting the same verb in the future tense gives us *adventurus* (and in English, adventure) meaning “about to come” or “about to happen.”
So an adventure was, originally, something that was about to happen, while Advent (at least in Christianity) refers to the season where we celebrate the coming—or the imminent arrival—of Christmas. But they are, essentially, the same word, the same thing.
For the next two weeks of the Advent season, we’re going to take a quick look at some adventures surrounding the birth of Jesus, and how those adventures, those journeys, shape our own faith journeys. And I hope that if you don’t already, you’ll come to see your own spiritual journey through this world as exactly that: An adventure shaped and inspired by the arrival of a savior.
This week, our scripture passages tell of two adventures—First, the journey of a pregnant Mary to visit her pregnant cousin Elizabeth, and then later, the journey of Mary and Joseph to the town of Bethlehem where Jesus was born.
Luke tells us that “in those days Mary set out and went with haste to a Judean town in the hill country.”
I love that little phrase: “with haste.” Mary has just heard the most astonishing news of her life. The angel has come to her and said, in effect, “Mary, God is doing something in you that will change the world. The Holy Spirit will overshadow you. You will bear a son. He will be holy. He will be called the Son of God.”
That is not the sort of news you just file away and get back to your to-do list.
And the angel doesn’t just speak about Mary. The angel also mentions Elizabeth—older, long thought to be unable to have children—who is now six months pregnant. So the angel gives Mary not only a promise but a sign: “Look at what God is doing in Elizabeth. What God is doing in you is just as real.”
What does Mary do with that? She gets up. She goes. She moves. She sets out “with haste.”
This, I think, is the first mark of an Advent(ure) kind of faith: When God begins something in us, we do not stay put. We move toward the places and people who help us recognize what God is doing.
Mary doesn’t stay alone with the mystery. She doesn’t keep it all in her head. She goes to someone who can share the wonder and shoulder the weight.
And when she arrives, something holy happens. Elizabeth hears Mary’s greeting and the child in Elizabeth’s womb leaps for joy. Elizabeth is filled with the Holy Spirit and cries out with this loud, Spirit-inspired blessing: “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb… Blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her by the Lord.”
Mary’s journey brings her to a place of confirmation. Her faith, which already said “yes” to God, is now strengthened by community. Her adventure is not just a private mystical experience—God makes sure it is shared and named and blessed.
So already we can see how their journey begins to shape ours:
- Mary’s journey reminds us that faith is not meant to be lived in isolation.
- When God stirs something in us—some call, some change, some new chapter—one of the most faithful things we can do is set out, “with haste,” toward someone who can help us see God’s hand in it.
- We need Elizabeths in our lives: people who, when we show up on their doorstep with our confusion and our questions and maybe our fear, look at us and say, “Blessed are you. I can see God at work in you, even if you can’t see it yet.”
And we are also called, at times, to be Elizabeth for someone else. To be the one who says, “You may feel overwhelmed, but I can see the Spirit’s fingerprints all over your story. You are blessed. God is keeping God’s promise in you.”
Mary’s first adventure is a journey toward community, toward confirmation, toward joy that leaps within her and around her. That is part of what an Advent faith looks like.
The second journey is very different.
The first time Mary travels, she goes because she wants to, because she needs to share the news, because she is seeking. But when we turn to Luke 2, we find a journey that is not their idea at all.
“In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” A census. A government requirement. A bureaucratic decision made far away from Nazareth.
Mary and Joseph travel not because it’s a good time, not because it’s safe, not because any doctor would have recommended it. They travel because an emperor says, “Everyone must go to their hometown.”
I imagine Mary looking at Joseph and saying, “Really? Now? Of all times?”
Joseph’s family is from Bethlehem, the city of David, and so they go. Luke tells us they go “from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to the city of David called Bethlehem.” It’s not a quick little stroll. It’s a long, uphill trek for a woman “great with child,” as the older translations put it.
Here is another mark of Advent(ure) faith: Sometimes the journeys that most shape us are the ones we never would have chosen.
Many of us know what that’s like.
- You did not choose the medical diagnosis that changed your life.
- You did not choose the job loss, the family conflict, the relocation, the grief.
- You did not choose the timing of certain events any more than Mary and Joseph chose to go to Bethlehem at exactly the wrong moment in a pregnancy.
And yet, in the middle of all that inconvenience—right there in the awkward, crowded, uncomfortable circumstances—Christ is born.
Luke tells us that while they were in Bethlehem, “the time came” for Mary to deliver her child. She gives birth to her firstborn son, wraps him in bands of cloth, and lays him in a manger, because there was no room for them in the inn.
The Savior of the world is born not in a carefully prepared nursery, but in a place that’s available at the last minute. Not in comfort, but in makeshift shelter. Not in control, but in vulnerability.
If Mary’s first journey shows us that faith moves willingly toward community, this second journey shows us that faith endures and trusts when life moves us unwillingly into places we never expected to be.
And yet—God is there.
God does not wait for Mary and Joseph to get back home to Nazareth, where everything is familiar and settled and manageable. God meets them right in the middle of the journey they didn’t ask for, under conditions they never would have designed.
That is good news for us, because most of our lives are not spent in ideal conditions either. Our adventures with God are not all mountaintop experiences and carefully planned retreats. Often they are more like being nine months pregnant, jostling along toward Bethlehem because some distant emperor signed a decree.
So what do these two adventures—Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and Mary and Joseph’s trip to Bethlehem—have to do with your life, with mine, with this Advent(ure) we’re on together?
Let me name a few ways.
- Faith moves toward the people who help us see God’s work. Mary does not stay in Nazareth and stew over the angel’s words. She sets out “with haste” to see Elizabeth. Our faith journeys are shaped by the people we walk toward. Who are the Elizabeths in your life? The people who know how to listen for the Spirit, who can bless you, who can help you recognize that what’s happening in you is not just random, but God at work? And just as importantly: who is looking to you as an Elizabeth? Is there someone in your world who needs you to say, “I see God’s promise being fulfilled in your life. Blessed are you for trusting God in this moment”? Advent is a season for making those journeys—picking up the phone, writing the note, making the visit, walking across the room—to strengthen each other’s faith.
- Faith learns to walk even on roads we didn’t choose. The road from Nazareth to Bethlehem is not a spiritual retreat; it is a forced march of empire. It is long, inconvenient, and poorly timed. And yet, somewhere along that dusty road, God is faithful. Somewhere in that overcrowded town, at the end of a journey they never wanted to take, Jesus Christ is born. Some of you are on a Bethlehem road right now—a path you didn’t choose, with burdens you didn’t ask for, at a time that could hardly be worse. Advent doesn’t tell us, “Cheer up, it’s fine.” Advent tells us, “Right there, in that mess, God can be born.” In the hospital room. In the uncertainty about your future. In the strained relationship. In the weariness that comes from carrying the same burden for a long time. If God can slip into the world in a Bethlehem stable, God can slip into your life in the middle of whatever you are going through now.
- Faith discovers that God is both coming to us and walking with us. Remember those two related words: Advent and adventure. Advent reminds us that God comes to us—that Jesus is Emmanuel, “God with us,” not waiting at the top of some distant spiritual mountain until we climb high enough. Adventure reminds us that there is always something about to happen—that following Jesus is not static, but dynamic. Our lives with God are not just about holding on to a set of beliefs; they are about walking, moving, being led into new places. Mary’s journey to Elizabeth shows us a God who is already at work, already preparing confirmation and joy at the end of the road. Mary and Joseph’s journey to Bethlehem shows us a God who meets us in the journeys we don’t choose, and who brings Christ to birth in the midst of them. Their journeys shape ours by reminding us: You are not walking alone. Your road, however twisted, can become holy ground. The adventure you are on is not random; it is part of the story of a God who comes near.
So let me ask you, as we begin this little two-week series:
Where is God inviting you to move “with haste” this season? To seek out someone who will help you see God’s work in your life? To reconcile with someone? To encourage someone? To step into community rather than staying alone?
What Bethlehem road are you walking that you did not choose? Can you dare to believe that Christ may be born in that place—that your exhaustion, your questions, your lack of control might be the very stable where God shows up?
Advent is the season when we remember that God has come, God is coming, and God will come again. It is the season when we dare to believe that our ordinary lives, with all their twists and turns, can be part of God’s great adventure of redemption.
Mary and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph—they are not just characters in a story we dust off once a year. They are fellow travelers whose journeys illuminate our own.
As we follow them this week, and as we follow shepherds and wise men next week, my prayer is that you will begin to see your life—your joys and your struggles, your choices and your unchosen roads—as part of this Advent(ure): the astonishing story of a God who comes near, and of people who dare to walk with Him.
