I loved SO many insights and gems from our Day1 Interview with Rick Steves – top among them is the way he helps us understand two powerful images of the Advent season: the light and the road.

First, there is the light. Rick shared with us a Scripture passage from the Gospel of John. John tells us, at the very beginning of his Gospel, that in Christ was life, and that life was the light of all people. And then John adds a line that feels almost whispered, like holy defiance. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it.

We hear those words every Advent, but they never grow old, do they? Who doesn’t cherish this advent promise: The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overtake it. Part of the reason we love these words about light is that every year, as the December days bring the chilling frost, we all can name at least five things happening in the world that make us tilt our heads and say, “Really? Light? Now? It seems awfully dark!” John is telling the truth we need most. The story of God does not begin with daylight. It begins in the dark. And yet, in the dark, the light is already shining.

And then our conversation with Rick reminds us of a second powerful Advent image: the journey, the road. Advent invites us to notice not only the light, but the road. Scripture is full of traveling people. Joseph and Mary, very pregnant, on the road to Bethlehem. Shepherds out walking because sheep are not impressively self-managing animals. Magi crossing borders under nothing but starlight and a sense that something holy was happening.

Faith is a ROAD. And traveling the road is not always straight, nor predictable. Sometimes we are not even sure we are traveling the correct road, sometimes we are oblivious to what we are seeing on the road.

I travelled to, and ended up living in rural Idaho right after college, way back in 2001, while serving as an AmeriCorps volunteer, as well as a waitress in the local diner. I was a city girl who’d never lived west of Wisconsin, with absolutely no idea how to live in a place where winter is not a “season” but a character-building experience. SO MUCH SNOW. I took what I thought was the correct road to get to the preschool where I was teaching. I was feeling very confident. I had just read a brochure about my Jeep’s 4-wheel drive. And, better than that, I’d figured out what it meant to put STUDS on my tires, and had made that happen!

Halfway up, around a bend, the road turned into pure ice hairpin turn. I spun, then stopped, and saw in my rearview mirror a man standing off to the side, futzing with a snowmobile. “Miss, you know this is not even a road, right? This is a snowmobile trail.”

“Oh, uh thank you.”

“You know you are supposed to take the plastic OFF your studded tires, right?” I did not. I had been sliding around town like Bambi on ice, wondering why studs on tires were supposedly so helpful.

I felt very awkward about letting this man help me get the plastic off my tires – being a needy damsel in distress not my jam. Then I realized WHO this guy was, as he was helping me – he was part of group of 3 guys I recognized as regulars at the diner where I waitressed, and I did NOT like them. Opposite political views from me, among other things. And yet. Here he was, helping me… we stayed friends from then on, and I ended up laughing with and learning a lot from him after that unexpected, embarrassing day on the ROAD.

It turns out that the Greek word for road in the New Testament is hodos. It means the literal road, yes, but it also means a way of life. The earliest Christians did not call themselves a religion. They called themselves The Way. It was never just about where you were going. It was about who walked beside you.

In the Gospel of Luke, HODOS, “road” is used in the Emmaus story. The disciples walk the entire road with Jesus but somehow do not recognize him even though they walked the whole afternoon together. Only later do they say, “did not our hearts burn within us on the road?” Their eyes caught up to what their hearts already knew. Which, again, is deeply reassuring for the rest of us who often recognize God only in hindsight.

But when we travel the road with God, the Advent road, the road to Bethlehem and to the Christ child, the unexpected, the surprising encounter, is around every turn. Rick reminded us that spiritual growth rarely happens while we are perfectly comfortable with a latte and a strong Wi Fi signal. Much as I would love that. Growth sneaks up on us in the layovers, the delays, the reroutes, and the moments when we find ourselves muttering, “Really, God? This road?”

When it comes to ROADS we travel, Rick shared how travel can look like a playground, which is delightful. A school, which is informative. Or a church, which is where transformation happens. A tourist seeks comfort, like a playground. A traveler seeks knowledge, like a school. A pilgrim seeks God. A pilgrim expects to be surprised, and even challenged.

Pilgrims are on the journey toward the unexpected, the dark and difficult road that is traveled with the surprising God as our companion, that the light often breaks through. Rick’s story from Bethlehem that felt like a modern parable in this way.

He told us about Rev. Dr. Mitri Raheb, pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Christmas Church in Bethlehem, whose church once suffered a military incursion that shattered all the stained-glass windows. The fragments fell everywhere. But the next Christmas, after Mitri had gathered the broken shards, he hung them on the Christmas tree as ornaments. It was his way of saying that even in the most fractured places, the Light still shines. Even broken pieces can reflect the light. That is not sentimental. That is gospel logic. The darker the night, the brighter the star.

Now, as Christians, we are not asked to pretend the darkness is not real. If you have ever gone through a December and thought, “This is not quite the cozy Hallmark montage I was promised,” you are in very good and very biblical company. The darkness is real. But John tells us the darkness does not win. The Light is stronger.

Rick also shared that story about being stuck in traffic in Tehran, and the man in the next car asked his driver to roll down the window. Then the man passed a bouquet of flowers through the window and said, “Please give this to the foreigner in your back seat and apologize for our traffic.” I cannot imagine that anyone in the history of ever has, in Atlanta, handed anyone flowers on I 285 to apologize for traffic. Yet, there on the road, in a traffic jam in Tehran, we see a reflection of the light that opens the world. The light that helps us see beauty where we expected nothing. The light that helps us see neighbors where we expected strangers. It helps us see the presence of Christ, while traveling the very road we thought was going nowhere.

We can’t talk about TRAVELING and the Christmas Story, of course, without the Magi, especially that single small detail in Matthew’s account of the Magi. After they visit the Christ child, Matthew says the Magi “went home by another way.” It is one sentence. Easy to miss. Once you encounter the Light, you are changed, you cannot go back the way you came. You go home by another way because the old road no longer fits who you are becoming.

And maybe that is the invitation of Christmas again this year. Not to rush in our travels to the brightness of Christmas morning. Not to pretend everything is fine, but instead, to walk the often dark road we have been given with eyes open for the holy, searching for the light. To trust that the Light is already shining. To believe that our broken pieces can still shimmer with grace. To notice the quiet ways Christ is traveling beside us, even when we are not yet ready to recognize him.

So, let’s keep an eye out for the reflections of stained-glass ornaments. Let’s keep seeking surprise. Let’s keep trusting that Christ, the Light of all people, is already shining on the path you are taking, even if, at times, you wish the path looked different than it does. Let’s keep paying attention for the small gifts of joy and kindness and grace that show up as we travel the road in front of us.

Near the end of our conversation, Rick mentions that he ends every television episode with the same phrase. “Keep on travelin’.” He pauses and says, “You could build a whole sermon on that.”

Amen, Rick. Amen.