Divine Movement
“Mary’s Journey of Joy: From Disorientation to New Orientation”
Two weeks ago, Pastor Rollan preached about how God unexpectedly moves through our distresses and disappointments. That if we wait on him, we will find our ultimate salvation in His son Jesus.
And last week, Ben shared about the Magi who abandoned their pagan religion to turn to the one true God. He challenged us to shift our gazes from the idols of our hearts, and continually turn our hearts to the One True King.
Today, we look at the Advent experience through Mary, whose life, in a single divine moment, dramatically shifted. In the text, we see that over a brief period of time, her disorientation ushered in a new orientation - a new everlasting hope because the long-prophesied Savior had finally come.
Focus: Advent invites us—like Mary—to acknowledge and bring our disorientation to God, to trust His surprising work, and to step into the new orientation only He can create. In the process, we can find joy in the waiting as Jesus reveals himself to us in new ways.
PRIMARY TEXT: Luke 1:26-56
“And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name.”
Luke 1:46-49 ESV
We continue with the theme of Joy.
Unlike happiness and pleasure, Joy is rooted in faith as it is from the Holy Spirit. We know this — it’s Christianity 101. But how Joy actually feels when we are in the midst of experiencing it can be harder to pinpoint because of our natural orientation to happiness and pleasure.
Even C.S. Lewis writes:
“it is that of an unsatisfied desire which is itself more desirable than any other satisfaction. I call it Joy, which is here a technical term and must be sharply distinguished both from Happiness and from Pleasure. Joy (in my sense) has indeed one characteristic, and one only, in common with them; the fact that anyone who has experienced it will want it again. Apart from that, and considered only in its quality, it might almost equally well be called a particular kind of unhappiness or grief. But then it is a kind we want. I doubt whether anyone who has tasted it would ever, if both were in his power, exchange it for all the pleasures in the world.”
From “Surprised by Joy”, C. S. Lewis
Mary’s exuberant poem filled with Joy, Magnificat, appears right after her disorientation. So let’s take a closer look at her journey getting there:
1. Advent: Season of Holy Disruption
2. Who was Mary?
3. Mary’s Disorientation
4. Mary’s New Orientation
5. Takeaways
1. Advent is the season of Holy Disruption
At the heart of Advent season is the experience of a promise being fulfilled after a very, very long season of waiting. When a cast of unlikely characters experienced a breakthrough in their realities. Unbeknownst to the most elite, most privileged and most “followed” (in our social media culture), God in His grace, quite literally entered our world through Jesus.
Christmas indeed is the season of new hope.
What we see so clearly is that when God does something new, the story always begins with a time of waiting, and most often, waiting in darkness.
Before new orientation comes, disorientation takes place.
With Mary as a great example of this journey, we’ll look at some Psalms as we acknowledge our own disorientations in life - situations, from God’s perspective - that are fertile grounds for New Hope.
She begins in the quiet orientation of Nazareth.
She is thrown into radical disorientation by Gabriel’s announcement
She emerges into the joyful new orientation of the Magnificat - which references many Psalms she was probably well versed in as Jewish teenager
2. Who was Mary?
A. Mary’s world before the angel
A teenage girl in Nazareth, engaged to Joseph.
Her life was predictable, quiet, normal—what Brueggemann calls a stable world of orientation.
Psalmic resonance: Psalms 1, 8, 33, 145—songs of trust, order, beauty, stability.
B. Orientation is not naïve—it is good
God blesses seasons of stability.
Orientation forms gratitude and rootedness.
Mary is spiritually prepared in the ordinary for the extraordinary call that is coming.
C. Advent connection
Israel once lived in orientation: promises, covenant, temple.
But the world is about to be disturbed—both Israel’s world and Mary’s world
Then what happens? In an instant, her life loses equilibrium. Her storyline changes.
Gabriel’s announcement disrupts everything
Luke 1:29:
“She was greatly troubled…” (literally: agitated, shaken, disturbed)
Mary faces emotional, relational, social, and spiritual upheaval:
Fear – “What does this greeting mean?”
Social risk – pregnant before marriage.
Relational threat – Joseph could leave.
Spiritual confusion – What does it mean to be overshadowed by the Spirit?
National tension – Messiah expectation under Roman occupation.
I vividly remember the four times I got laid off - in a single moment, several strands of fear, insecurity, anxiety, and anger rushed in.
For you it might be a breakup, illness, death…
We suddenly face the reality of chaos, dislocation, injustice and brokenness in the world. We come face to face with our human vulnerability.
Let’s take our time and look at Mary’s moment of disorientation:
3. Mary’s Experience of Divine Movement: Disorientation
It was personal:
Earlier in the text, we see another person getting a visit from Gabriel.
“And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And Zechariah was troubled when he saw him, and fear fell upon him.”
Luke 1:11-12 ESV
Unlike Zechariah who was more alarmed at the sight of an angel, Mary reacted to the directness of the message to her:
“And there appeared to him an angel of the Lord standing on the right side of the altar of incense. And he came to her and said, “Greetings, O favored one, the Lord is with you!” But she was greatly troubled at the saying, and tried to discern what sort of greeting this might be.”
Luke 1:11, 28-29 ESV
This is the moment of her disorientation. As Jewish girl, she is well-versed in the history of her people. She knows that everyone who’s had a similar encounter with God or his messengers didn’t have a easy life after:
Unprecedented Favor: The title "highly favored" was a divine, royal blessing usually reserved for great figures, making Mary, a simple peasant girl, deeply unsettled by the implications of such immense grace.
Call to Mission: The greeting signaled a significant divine encounter, prompting her to think, "What is God asking me to do?" as she recognized a call to a great task like those of Old Testament heroes.
Personal Incongruity: She couldn't reconcile the divine favor with her own humble life and status, making her question the meaning of the greeting for her specifically.
Disorientations are always specific to our individual sense of self and our grasp on the world. The very definition of disorientation entails that we were once orientated towards something that grounded our stability and framed our views about life - a job, a relationship, a dream…even ideologies like democracy, justice and freedom.
Note that these are not sinful orientations in and of themselves. In fact, Mary most likely lived a very “good life” steeped in tradition and religious beliefs.
Yet, these are also established ways of how we operate in the world and navigate reality that in a second, when they get shaken, shift our sense of balance.
It posed the intrusion of a new reality:
Mary’s honest question: “How will this be?” (Luke 1:34)
If hope is the belief that a new configuration of reality is possible, then disorientation - what comes before it - is a giving way of old realities.
Let’s learn from Mary’s reaction.
She didn’t ask, “Why me?”
She didn’t complain, nor grumble
She didn’t make it about herself at all
Her focus was on how will this move forward - how will this work?
It was God-initiated:
“And the angel answered her, “The Holy Spirit will come upon you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you; therefore the child to be born will be called holy—the Son of God. And behold, your relative Elizabeth in her old age has also conceived a son, and this is the sixth month with her who was called barren. For nothing will be impossible with God.” And Mary said, “Behold, I am the servant of the Lord; let it be to me according to your word.” And the angel departed from her.”
Luke 1:35-38 ESV
When Mary came to the clear understanding that God was still behind this - that He hadn’t left the scene and in fact simply showing up in an unprecedented way, she submitted to His will.
And throughout the New Testament, we see that her “blessedness” isn’t exactly how we in our present day sensibilities would frame as glory to glory.
No. We see a poor, courageous Jewish mother whose life is repeatedly broken open by God—and who keeps consenting, again and again, to live in this strange, painful, hopeful new world that the God of Israel is bringing to birth in her Son.
Now, we can’t expect a visit from Gabriel in our moments of disorientation. And this is the danger of course.
As Pastor Rollan mentioned in his sermon, in moments of distress and disappointments, we turn to sinful patterns like addictions.
Likewise, in our disorientations, we have several coping mechanisms:
We minimize the situation
We disassociate
We deconstruct
Sadly, some Christians turn away from God completely.
So how do we experience Joy in these moments? How can we stay in Faith?
But what we can do is bring them before God. More importantly, engage our community. And the Psalms are the tools we have to do so.
This isn’t a sermon on the Psalms, but let me take a quick pit stop here to share some context. Mary’s song of praise we read earlier mirrors several Psalms of New Orientation.
Ancient Israelites - the culture Mary was raised in - believed that God was open to honest engagement. He understands the great human struggle to make sense of experiences of pain and suffering, and helps us integrate them into the spiritual journey.
On the whole, the Book of Psalms broadens our dialogical relationship with God. Spoken, prayed and meditated on, they direct our words to the only One who can truly validate them in their realness.
Through these candid and sometimes, awkward poems, we experience a God who attaches himself to the human condition. To belong to someone is to be vulnerable. You are allowing yourself to be in their moments of pain and grief, reckoning with trauma, and just dealing with the day-to-day struggles.
A closer look at some Psalms of Disorientation:
Psalm 6: bones are “in agony”; the psalmist is worn out with groaning.
Psalm 13: “How long… will you forget me forever?”
Psalm 22: abandonment and mockery that Jesus takes on his lips at the cross.
Psalms 3, 7, 17: hunted, slandered, surrounded by enemies
Psalms 32 & 38: the weight of sin felt in body and soul.
Psalm 37 & 73: wrestling with the prosperity of the wicked and the suffering of the righteous
Psalm 77: remembering God’s past wonders and asking if his steadfast love has ceased
4. Mary’s New Orientation: “My Soul Magnifies the Lord”
Only in bringing our disorientations to God can we create and hold space for our souls as we wait faithfully for new orientation.
Luke 1:46–55 is structurally and emotionally identical to Psalms of reorientation (Pss 30, 40, 126).
It contains:
Joy after fear
Surprise after confusion
Reversal after brokenness
Praise after lament
Mary emerges with a new song. What was the turning point?
“And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? For behold, when the sound of your greeting came to my ears, the baby in my womb leaped for joy. And blessed is she who believed that there would be a fulfillment of what was spoken to her from the Lord.”
Luke 1:41-45 ESV
There are three elements we see here:
She sought community
She experienced the Holy Spirit
She believed
5. Takeaways:
New orientation is never a return to normal
Mary is not going back to Nazareth as if nothing happened.
Her entire identity and destiny have been redefined by grace.
Like Mary, as we bring our disorientations to God and wait on His divine movements, we can also experience her new orientation:
God’s faithfulness:
“He who is mighty has done great things for me.”
God’s justice:
“He has brought down the mighty… lifted the humble.”
God’s mercy:
“His mercy is for those who fear him…”
God’s covenant:
“He has helped his servant Israel…”
Our disorientations are holy places.
We acknowledge that our lives will never be the same again, yet we know in Christ, we will not be shaken.
We experience the depths of life’s injustice, feel forgotten, tired of waiting or even completely overlooked by opportunities, but we know God so loved us that He gave his only Son - He gave himself - for our salvation.
Like Mary and the Psalmist, the most important response is that we bring our truths to God - we go to Him with our disorientations. Like Isaiah and Jeremiah, we name our sources of fear, anxiety and pain. We bring them before God knowing that New Orientation only comes from Him.
“Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Through him we have also obtained access by faith into this grace in which we stand, and we rejoice in hope of the glory of God. Not only that, but we rejoice in our sufferings, knowing that suffering produces endurance, and endurance produces character, and character produces hope, and hope does not put us to shame, because God’s love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us.”
Romans 5:1-5 ESV
Summary:
You can bring your honest disorientation to God.
Mary did. Israel did. Jesus did.
God meets us in disorientation with new creation.
If your world is shaking, Advent says: you are on holy ground.
New orientation is coming—but on God’s terms.
It may not look like your old life restored—
it will be deeper, truer, and more Spirit-filled.
Your “yes” to God in the dark is enough.
Mary didn’t have clarity—she had trust.
Every believer is called to bear Christ into the world.
Mary’s physical bearing of Christ becomes the Church’s spiritual calling.