A Divine Interruption
DECEMBER 5, 2025
Lake Street Church of Evanston, Illinois
As we journey through another Advent season, many are keenly aware of the challenges our nation faces due to drastic changes to life and liberty in our communities. Life as we know it was interrupted and disrupted. Many people lost their savings, their retirement funds, and their homes. They struggle to make ends meet. Even more disruptive, siblings in our city and across our nation have lost loved ones, taken away to detention centers, deported, or unaccounted for. Others have experienced physical challenges, some of it the result of the stress that comes with multiple forms of oppression. Minding their business and doing what God called them to do, but the tsunami came, bringing waves of struggle. Sometimes interruptions come unexpectedly and at times are uninhibited.
What does it mean, in the middle of it, to know Jesus is on his way? To anticipate the appearance of the one whose name Dr. Wil Gafney interprets as “the holy one who saves”? How do we encounter the one coming down a long line of God’s salvific acts as an annunciation of good news coming to let us know love is with us? How do we hold fast to hope when he’s hidden in the womb and shrouded in an Afro-Asiatic young girl named Mary, who is reduced to the lower rungs of society? A girl interrupted.
God’s purpose and response to empire is a divine interruption manifested in Mary, through questionable circumstances in a community where “righteousness” is of great value. As New Testament scholar Dr. Michael Brown reminds us, Joseph could make his own decisions, but Mary was at the mercy of others. While facing the harsh changes of life that included threats to her livelihood and life, Mary had to believe in the holy inside of her. Joseph had to listen and act faithfully.
Sometimes love is in a womb; seen but not seen. Shrouded in what Dr. Alton B. Pollard, III calls “endarkenment,” and calling for our faith and belief in the process of becoming. Hidden in what many don’t prefer. Encapsulated in black and brown women’s voices that need to be heard and respected. Concealed in prayer warriors who labor in love for us at the altar, even when we don’t know it. Wrapped in the wisdom of elders and disguised as hard lessons, which are also love manifested. Cloaked in every ancestor that stands by and surrounds us in our time of need.
Advent invites us to look for and lean into love, the ability to show compassion, nurture, honor, and commitment to God, self, and neighbor. To be part of the Holy One’s movement of interruptions that respond to disruptions. We stand in a great tradition of people who knew love would win. They chose to stand up when the law said sit down. They chose to speak when the law said be quiet. They chose to resist when the law said be compliant. They made determinations about right and wrong not based on how dominant culture defined it, but based on situational ethics and how the reality of their lives and God’s directives defined it. We not only anticipate God’s son who will surely interrupt on our behalf, but we live as he did for each other. Go interrupt!