Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 1

Day 1: The Genealogy of Waiting. Today we reflect on Matthew 1:1 - "An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah, the son of David, the son of Abraham." Join us this Advent as we sit with the waiting in the first 5 chapters of Matthew's Gospel.

Transcript

Hello friends,

This is Mark Gladman,

Also known as Brother Frederick James,

Your friendly neighbourhood monk in docks,

Welcoming you to Advent 2025,

Waiting with Matthew.

This coming liturgical year is year A,

And so the Sunday Gospels that will be read will come from Matthew's Gospel,

And so this year as we go through Advent,

We're going to spend some time in the first five chapters of Matthew,

And we're going to sit with Matthew through a whole bunch of waiting as we prepare for Jesus to come and to bring his ministry to the world.

And so as we begin today,

I invite you to take a deep breath in and out,

To slow yourself,

To settle yourself,

As we ask God to open our ears,

Open our minds,

And open our hearts to what it might be that Matthew speaks to us today.

Our reflection today comes from the very first verse of Matthew,

Matthew 1 verse 1,

An account of the genealogy of Jesus the Messiah,

The son of David,

The son of Abraham.

Matthew's Gospel doesn't begin with angels or shepherds,

Not with a shining star or a newborn cry.

He begins with a list,

A long,

Uneven,

Sometimes uncomfortable list,

Names stacked one upon another like the layers of an ancient wall,

Stones chipped,

Weathered,

And set in place across centuries.

You and I,

We tend to hurry past these names when we read them,

But Matthew invites us to pause because these names are names through which God's story breathes.

Every name carries a heartbeat,

A moment of faith,

A stretch of waiting.

This genealogy is a portrait of time held open,

Of a God who works through people and through patience.

And it's a story that begins with promise.

Matthew anchors Jesus in two promises,

Abraham and David,

The son of Abraham,

The one through whom all nations would be blessed,

And the son of David,

The one through whom God's kingdom would endure forever.

Abraham's wait was decades for his promise to become flesh in Isaac.

David waited through battle and betrayal before the crown ever touched his head.

Their lives were not instant success stories.

They were slow pilgrimages,

Pilgrimages towards trust.

And the genealogy reminds us that God does not rush redemption.

It moves forward at the pace of human hearts learning how to say yes.

When Matthew writes an account of the genealogy,

The Greek word he uses,

Genesis,

Begins right there in the beginning.

He's deliberately echoing the very first words of scripture in the beginning.

Matthew is announcing a new creation.

God is beginning again,

Not by sweeping away the past,

Though,

But by redeeming it.

Name by name,

Life by life.

And you'll notice there's a rhythm to this genealogy,

A rhythm of 14 generations.

14 generations from Abraham to David,

14 from David to the exile,

And 14 from the exile to the Messiah.

14,

14,

14.

It's almost like a tolling bell,

And we will come back to this in the next couple of days.

But for now,

Each set of 14 marks a movement,

Promise given,

Promise lost,

Promise renewed.

In Hebrew numerology,

14 is the number of David,

Each letter of his name adding up to that sacred count.

So the structure itself spells David,

David,

David,

Announcing that the one who would come as the true son of David is the fulfillment of all royal longing.

But listen even deeper.

Between those names lies the ache of time.

Generations were born,

Worked,

Grew old,

And died,

Carrying a hope that they would never see fulfilled in their own lifetime.

The genealogy is the story of people who held on anyway.

They kept believing that God's word was still alive,

Even when centuries seemed to say otherwise.

And you'll notice that there are shadows within the line,

Because look who appears in the list.

He doesn't clean it up.

Matthew includes those we'd prefer to forget.

He includes Tamar,

Who risked everything to demand justice,

Rahab,

A Canaanite woman whose courage opened the way into the Promised Land,

Ruth,

A Moabite outsider whose love became the lineage of kings,

Bathsheba,

Whom Matthew gently names only as the wife of Uriah,

Reminding us that even through abuse of power and human failure,

God's mercy still finds a path.

This is not a royal call of saints.

It's a family tree of grace at work in the ruins.

God writes straight with crooked lines.

In the very bloodline of the Messiah runs betrayal,

Exile,

Foreign blood,

And pain.

And yet,

All of it becomes the soil in which salvation grows.

Maybe this is why the genealogy matters,

Because it tells us that waiting doesn't mean being perfect while we wait.

It means allowing our imperfect,

Messy stories and lives to remain open for God's redemption to flow through us.

No one in this list could see how their small obedience would one day become part of the incarnation,

But every yes,

However fragile,

Carried the story forward.

And it is awaiting,

Through silence and exile,

Because there's a huge pause in here.

The deportation to Babylon,

Generations uprooted,

The temple destroyed,

The promises seemed broken beyond repair.

For centuries,

There were no prophets,

No clear word from heaven,

Only silence and survival.

And yet,

Matthew still lists name after name here.

Shealtiel,

Zerubbabel,

Eliakim,

Azor,

Zadok,

People who kept the memory alive when there was nothing visible to hold onto.

Their faith wasn't dramatic,

It was durable.

They carried the story like embers in a dark night.

They believed that somehow,

Even in exile,

God was not absent,

Only hidden.

That kind of waiting is the heart of Advent.

It's the courage to keep the lamp burning when the horizon is still black.

And you'll notice we see glimpses of fulfillment hidden in the ordinary.

Because as the list narrows,

We get to Jacob,

The son of Joseph,

The husband of Mary,

Of whom Jesus was born,

Who is called the Messiah.

So,

After all those kings and patriarchs,

The story lands in the hands of two obscure villages in a provincial town far from Jerusalem.

This is how God keeps promises,

Quietly,

Tenderly,

Through people who live faithfully in the ordinary.

Matthew begins with a genealogy to teach us that incarnation isn't a sudden miracle dropped from heaven.

It's the culmination of a long human story,

Of generations saying yes in small ways,

Of waiting hearts making room for God's arrival.

When we grow weary of waiting,

When hope feels delayed or deferred,

We can look at this genealogy and see that God's clock runs deeper than ours.

Because nothing is wasted.

Every generation mattered.

Every season of barrenness,

Every silence,

Every exile was a hidden preparation for Emmanuel.

And now,

Here we are,

Centuries later,

Reading this list as our own family story.

Because we are grafted into this same tree.

Abraham's faith runs in our spiritual veins.

Mary's,

Let it be done,

Echoes in our own hearts.

The wait continues,

But it's no longer an empty waiting.

Christ has come and still comes and will come again.

Our Advent waiting is not nostalgia for something past.

It's participation in the slow unfolding of God's future.

We wait not for God to arrive,

But to awaken the God who is already with us,

Already present in the long line of our days.

And so,

As this Advent begins,

Friend,

Don't rush to the manger.

Sit instead with the names.

Let them remind you that faith is generational,

That grace has a memory longer than our impatience.

Let the genealogy of Jesus become the genealogy of your own hope.

And so,

As we bring our time to a close,

I invite you to hold in your heart the thing from today's reflection that might have sat with you strongly,

Powerfully,

Perhaps challenged you,

Perhaps brought you peace,

As we pray together.

God of Abraham and Sarah,

God of Ruth and David,

God of Mary and Joseph,

You are the God who remembers.

Across generations,

You've been faithful,

Carrying your promise through the fragile stories of your people.

Teach us to wait with trust.

When we can't see the way ahead,

Remind us that you're still writing.

When time feels heavy,

Help us to rest in your timing.

Make our waiting fertile,

That Christ may be born again in us and your promise find flesh in our lives,

Through the one who is the beginning and the end,

Jesus our Emmanuel.

Amen.

So,

As you go today,

My friend,

May you discover God's faithfulness hidden in the long,

Ordinary stretches of your story.

May your waiting become a place where hope quietly grows roots and may you know,

Deep in your bones,

That you belong to a lineage of grace that still carries the promise of Christ into the world.

And may that grace,

Peace,

Love,

Hope,

Go with you this day and every day.

Amen.

Until tomorrow,

Peace be with you.

Reviews

A beautiful reflection, thank you 🙏🏻

Beautiful devotional on the genealogy of Christ. The lineage came alive in a new way. Deepening my understanding of the waiting for and anticipation of the coming of the Messiah.

Wonderful.

Thank you for leading us through our rich history-and for the reminder that our God is always faithful to us♥️🛐

All those names were meaningless to me until this moment. Thank you.

It’s a pleasure listening to you again. Thank you for bringing this reflection to my life. 🙏

A beautiful start to Advent reflections, Mark ❤️ With much appreciation 🙏🏻❤️

Excellent. Wow, I have always zipped past that genealogy. Thank you so much for the rich lesson in slowing down and considering that list carefully! Looking forward to learning from you this Advent season.

Advent blessings. I’ll be sharing a message of expectation, waiting & hope this morning in Wellfleet, MA. Filling in for our pastor at the 8:30 service 🙏🏾

You took words from Matthew that I always simply skimmed over and gave them meaning and beauty. Words that I never considered as anything more than just a list of names from the Bible became through your voice a visual of God’s work and God’s promise.

Thank you, Mark. I'm looking forward to your teachings this Advent. I received a sense of connection, belonging and hope.🙏💝🌅

beautiful, thank you 🙏🏼