Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 10

Day 10: Waiting Requires Trust. Today we reflect on Matthew 2:13 – “An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt…’” Join us this Advent as we sit with the waiting in the first 5 chapters of Matthew's Gospel.

Transcript

Hello my friends.

This is Mark Gladman,

Also known as Brother Frederick James,

Your friendly neighborhood monk in docks,

Welcoming you to day 10 of our Advent 2025 series,

Waiting with Matthew.

As we begin today,

As always,

I invite you to settle yourself,

To breathe deeply,

To still the noises,

Both audible,

Inaudible,

In our hearts and that are around us,

And invite God to open our ears,

Our minds and our hearts.

As we reflect today on Matthew chapter 2 verse 13,

Where Matthew writes,

An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

Get up,

Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.

There's a kind of trust that comes easily.

It's the trust that rests in familiar routines,

In stable circumstances,

In moments when what God asks of us fit neatly inside our plans and expectations.

And then,

Then there's this kind of trust.

The trust Joseph is asked to embody in today's text.

The trust that wakes you in the middle of the night and asks you to get up,

To move,

To change direction,

To step into the unknown because God's voice whispers something urgent,

Something costly,

Something disruptive.

Again,

Matthew tells us an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said,

Get up,

Take the child and his mother and flee to Egypt.

Now,

This is the second time Joseph's life has been upended by a divine dream.

The first dream asked him to stay.

This dream asks him to go.

The first dream asked him to trust God's mysterious work in Mary.

This dream asks him to trust God's protection from Herod.

And Joseph's obedience isn't passive.

It's courageous.

It's swift.

And it's going to cost him something.

And it teaches us something essential about the spiritual life.

That waiting on God is not the same as standing still.

Sometimes waiting is holding still,

But sometimes waiting is moving.

Sometimes waiting is letting go of everything secure because God is calling us into a story that we can't yet see.

Joseph's trust isn't built on certainty.

It's built on relationship.

It doesn't have a guarantee that Egypt will be safe.

It doesn't have a map.

He doesn't know how long his exile,

His family's exile is going to last.

He doesn't know how they'll survive when they get there.

He just simply knows the one who spoke.

There's a trust that grows only in darkness.

The trust that moves because God has spoken,

Not because the path is clear.

This,

This is the trust of Abraham,

Leaving his homeland with no destination given.

This is the trust of Moses,

Walking into the sea before it parts.

This is also the trust of Mary saying yes before she understands how the promise is going to unfold.

And now the trust of Joseph.

Get up,

Take the child,

Flee to Egypt.

Egypt,

The land that once symbolized slavery,

Pain,

Bondage,

Oppression,

The place from which Israel's ancestors had cried out to be delivered from.

And now God sends the Holy Family back there,

Back into the land of exile,

Back into the place that carries memory,

Wounds,

History.

Why?

Well,

I think it might be because God is weaving redemption from the inside out.

Because the story of Jesus will recapitulate the story of Israel.

Because the one who will one day call us out of every slavery first enters into the geography of Israel's oldest trauma.

And Joseph must trust what he cannot understand.

This is often where trust becomes most difficult for us when,

When God brings us into places we thought we'd left behind.

When we find ourselves in territory that's unfamiliar or uncomfortable.

When we feel like we're moving backwards instead of forwards.

When obedience leads to exile rather than security.

Joseph's trust is made of simple,

Quiet,

Faithfulness.

The kind of trust that doesn't demand explanations,

That doesn't negotiate,

Doesn't wait for conditions to improve,

But simply obeys because God spoke.

Matthew tells us that Joseph gets up immediately in the middle of the night,

No delays,

No discussion,

No second guessing.

This is the posture of a man who has shaped his inner life around God's voice.

This is what trust in waiting looks like,

Listening deeply,

Responding promptly and entrusting the consequences to God.

Waiting requires this kind of trust.

Not the trust that everything will be easy,

But the trust that God is already ahead of us.

Not the trust that we'll understand the plan,

But the trust that the one who leads us is faithful.

Not the trust that we'll be safe from discomfort,

But the trust that we will never be outside God's presence.

And maybe,

I suspect many of you know something of this kind of trust.

Maybe there are areas of your life where God is nudging you or gently disturbing your comfort or whispering an invitation that feels unclear,

But persistent.

Maybe you too are being asked to rise from what feels familiar,

To leave something behind,

To step into a new season or a new way of being without knowing exactly how it'll unfold.

Trust isn't something we muster in moments of crisis.

It's something cultivated slowly through small yeses that prepare us for the larger ones.

Joseph's midnight obedience is only possible because he'd already learned how to listen,

How to believe,

How to surrender.

Waiting isn't passive resignation.

Waiting is active trust.

The trust that says,

I'll take the next step even if I can't see the next 10.

In this moment of the gospel,

Joseph's trust safeguards the life of Jesus.

His obedience becomes the vessel through which God protects the infant Messiah.

This is what trust can do.

It participates in God's saving work.

It cooperates with grace,

Becomes part of the healing of the world.

Trust turns our waiting from isolation into participation in God's unfolding story.

And maybe today that's the invitation to you.

To trust that the call you feel is real.

That the nudge you sense is God's invitation and the unfolding in your life,

Even if it feels uncertain,

Is held within the larger faithful movement of God.

Because waiting requires trust.

And trust opens doors to obedience and obedience opens the doors to grace.

Joseph rises in the darkness,

Takes the child and his mother and walks towards Egypt under starlight,

Not knowing the future,

But knowing deeply the one who holds it.

May you have this same courage,

This same intimacy with God's voice,

This same willingness to follow the light you have into the future.

God is preparing for you.

And I invite you as always now to hold the challenges,

The lesson,

The whispers of God's spirit from this time reflecting.

And as you do,

I hold you in this prayer.

Faithful God,

You who whisper in our dreams and stir our hearts with holy invitations,

Teach us to trust you in our waiting.

Give us the courage of Joseph that we might rise even in the dark and take the next step you place before us.

Help us to release our need for certainty and cling instead to your steady presence.

When the path feels unclear,

Steady us.

When fear tightens around our choices,

Free us.

When waiting stretches longer than we expected,

Sustain us.

May trust become the posture of our hearts and obedience the natural fruit of your grace within us.

Amen.

And as you rise from this time together to go into your day,

May you trust the one who speaks to you in quiet places.

May you find courage to rise and follow even into uncertainty.

And may your waiting become a doorway into deeper faith,

Deeper obedience,

And deeper peace.

And may grace,

Peace,

And love go with you every step of the way,

This day and always.

Amen.

Until tomorrow,

My friends,

Peace be with you.

Reviews

Thank you for this reminder to trust the God Nudges as I wait. 🌅💝💝

I so appreciate your guidance through the scriptures and your prayers. May our trust increase as we walk one step at a time.

Such a great message, and so timely in my life.
Thank you!

Thank you! It was like God was speaking directly to me. Blessings 🙏🏻❤️

And also with you 🙏🏾