December 14, 2025

Pregnant Pauses

“Pregnant Pauses” An Advent Reflection based on a paraphrase of Luke 1:26-56 delivered on the Third Sunday in Advent, December 14, 2025, by the Rev. Alison Andrea Young at the First Congregational UCC of Onekama, Michigan.

Advent, among other things, is both figuratively and literally, a pregnant pause. Not just a time of shopping, making wreaths, attending craft fairs, walking in Sleighbell Parades and attending concerts, as well as lighting the candles on the Advent wreath each Sunday in church. Advent is a time in which Mary “great with child” struggled, haltingly to accompany Joseph on a trip of about 90 miles back to his hometown in order to be counted in a governmentally mandated census—probably having to take frequent rest stops and worrying and wondering if she would make it to their destination before the baby she was carrying demanded to be born.. . .