Advent journeys
Photograph by Kristaps Ungurs via Unsplash
Rev. Sandra Dorsainvil
The season of Advent is underway. It has been a time of pause and anticipation of the birth of baby Jesus. Christians are invited into a journey of discernment. We remember the biblical story found in the gospel of Luke, telling us of Joseph and pregnant Mary who made a long journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem, to comply with an executive order issued by Caesar Augustus that required them to register for a census data collection. One can assume that the paths they traveled two thousand years ago were filled with mixed emotions given Mary’s pregnancy. We can also assume that hope, joy, love, and obedience intertwined with physical discomfort and worry. Had the journey been made in 2025, it would have been treacherous or nearly impossible, given all that is currently happening in that same region.
I ponder how might the Advent tradition of lighting candles for four weeks be met when people seek to meet the necessities of food and clean water? How might families sit with the words we find in Isaiah 9:2: “The people who walked in darkness have seen a great light; those who lived in a land of deep darkness — on them light has shined”? Can they see the light of Jesus amid gang warfare, chaos, earthquakes, emotional and sociopolitical hurricanes? How does hope carry them forward?
The season of Advent meanders for all of us in unique ways, given the pride of our diverse heritage, the elders who have walked the journey before us, and family traditions linked to this liturgical season. This spiritual journey can invite some to make a physical pilgrimage. Two members from my prayer circle recently walked a portion of El Camino de Santiago, as a spiritual preparation for the Advent journey. El Camino de Santiago is a myriad of trails in southern France, part of Portugal, and Spain. These walking trails welcome many pilgrims all year round.
Who are you deciding to journey with or on behalf of during this liturgical season of Advent? How will your candles of hope, peace, joy, and love help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the ones without shelter, and heal the brokenhearted?
My prayer partners were testing a route for a walking pilgrimage they plan to offer to a group of women in 2026. They walked for seven days in the rain, trying to understand the rainy weather they encountered on these seven days and what needed to be cleansed or needed to be emptied out. They remembered our prayer circle every time they noticed lit candles under protected structures along the trails. Those candles reminded them of the ones we light every time we gather. They met hope, joy, and love through the rain as they noticed the lit candles on the side of the roads. They felt the reassurance of many prayers surrounding them and being joined by the candles they saw in Spain. They felt that the rain was like a baptism of God’s love as they welcomed peace in their hearts.
This 2025 Advent season has me lighting a candle of courage, which symbolizes how I join other global citizens for whom travel restrictions, insecurities, and injustices severely limit their comings and goings. This candle of courage joins the traditional Advent candles of hope, peace, joy, and love. As Christ followers, we are called to be the hands and feet of Jesus, meeting courage as courage holds us.
We journey in solidarity with those who dare to stand, walk, speak, write, sing, dance, stomp for all who are caught in the grip of injustice. The journey has never been meant to be a solitary one. In the gospel of Luke, we read that upon hearing the good news of the birth of the Savior Jesus, the shepherds traveled to the inn, as a group (Luke 2:15-17).
Who are you deciding to journey with or on behalf of during this liturgical season of Advent? How will your candles of hope, peace, joy, and love help feed the hungry, clothe the naked, house the ones without shelter, and heal the brokenhearted? Whether our journeys began in Nazareth, Bethlehem, Tui (in Spain), Port-au-Prince (in Haiti), Rome (in Italy), New Echota, Georgia or Dorchester County, Maryland (in the United States), Amsterdam (in The Netherlands), Abomey (in Benin), or anywhere in the world, the global footprints made by well-worn shoes keep moving forward. The collective wisdom generated in the hearts of our respected elders continues to inform our aching hearts of today, and plant seeds in justice-minded soil for our tomorrows. The journeys cannot stop with the Advent season. Let us keep on marching, chanting, stomping, and opening our hearts to God’s unfailing guidance.
An ordained minister with ABC-USA, Rev. Sandra Dorsainvil serves as a Ministry Coach and Women’s Group Retreat Facilitator with the Center for Career Development & Ministry. Fluent in English and French, she has had cross-cultural lived experiences in several countries in Africa, Europe and North America. Rev. Sandra is a published author of three devotionals, “Walk with Generosity,” “Beacons of Hope” and “Luces de Esperanza,” as well as co-author of a leader’s guide for leaders of short-term mission teams of volunteers, “Short-Term Mission Team Essentials – Together on The Journey.”
The views expressed are those of the author and not necessarily those of American Baptist Home Mission Societies.
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