Christmas as a Journey – Alexander Steinfeldt

A pilgrim’s reflection on the Christmas story, trust, and setting out despite uncertainty.

Dear Pilgrims,

On Christmas Eve, like so many others, I listened once again to the Christmas story. It is so familiar that we sometimes stop really hearing it.

This year, one line stayed with me: “Joseph went up from the town of Nazareth in Galilee to Judea, to Bethlehem.”

Suddenly, I realised that the Christmas story is also a story of pilgrimage.

Mary and Joseph do not set out because they feel inspired or ready. They do not go out of curiosity or spiritual enthusiasm. They go because circumstances require it.

Their journey is uncomfortable, uncertain, and deeply vulnerable.

That touches something in me, because it mirrors my own experience of pilgrimage. Often, I do not set out because everything is clear, but precisely because it is not. Because something inside me feels unsettled, open, unfinished.

Pilgrimage rarely begins from strength. It begins with a quiet call: Go. Now.

Even more than Mary and Joseph, I find myself drawn to the shepherds. They are outdoors, attentive, and suddenly confronted with something far greater than themselves.

They are afraid – and they go anyway.

That, too, is pilgrimage: to walk despite fear, without guarantees, trusting the way rather than controlling it.

The shepherds witness something holy, but they do not hold on to it. They return to their daily lives, changed, yet grounded.

Perhaps this is what Christmas offers me: the reminder that God does not meet us in perfection or at the centre of power, but at the margins – in simplicity, in silence, on the way.

When I walk as a pilgrim, I sometimes sense this. Not as an answer to every question, but as a quiet assurance: I am allowed to walk. Step by step.

This Christmas, I wish you a safe journey – outwardly and inwardly. May you notice where something holy quietly shines through your everyday life. And may you continue on your path without fear.