Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 18

Day 18: Waiting with Humility. Today we reflect on Matthew 3:14 – “John would have prevented him, saying, ‘I need to be baptized by you, and do you come to me?’” Join us this Advent as we sit with the waiting in the first 5 chapters of Matthew's Gospel.

Transcript

Well,

Hello,

My friends.

This is Mark Gladman,

Also known as Brother Frederick James,

Your friendly neighbourhood monk in dogs.

As we continue today,

Waiting with Matthew,

Our Advent 2025 series.

And today,

Day 18,

Where we reflect on Matthew's words in chapter 3,

Verse 14,

Where he writes,

And so I invite you,

As always,

To take a deep breath in,

To allow yourself to come to a time of rest and stillness.

Asking God to open our ears,

Our minds and our hearts to the whispers of the Spirit today.

Now,

There's a moment in Matthew that's always felt like a small,

Bright stone in the river of the Gospel.

It's a moment that's so simple that you can easily walk past it.

But if we stop and listen,

It makes a sound that changes how we walk.

John the Baptist sees Jesus approaching the Jordan and instinctively knows the turn of the story.

All of John's work has been preparing a people to receive a coming king.

He stood naked in the wilderness,

Spoken with prophetic bluntness,

Called crowds to repentance,

Baptized them with water as a sign of turning.

He's pointed outward and upward.

One is coming after me.

And then,

There,

Standing before him is the One.

John's first response is surprising.

He doesn't rush to perform the rite.

Instead,

He resists.

He steps back.

He protests.

I need to be baptized by you.

And do you come to me?

There's a humility in that sentence so deep,

It disarms.

John recognizes something about Jesus that the crowd doesn't yet grasp.

He senses in the approaching figure,

Not merely a teacher or a prophet,

But the One whose presence rearranges roles,

Reverses expectations,

And upends every hierarchy John has been raised to defend.

Humility in this scene is not self-depreciation.

It's not a timid or false modesty.

It's a clear-eyed recognition of truth.

John knows his place in the story.

He knows his vocation.

And he knows that the river on which he stands is about to carry a new kind of life.

There are a few directions I want us to sit with in this text today,

Each one opening the Advent theme of waiting through the lens of humility.

Now,

John sees what others can't.

The crowd expects the baptizer to be the central figure,

The prophet,

The reformer,

The radical voice of God.

But John's eyes pierce through expectations to the reality of the Incarnation.

The Messiah is strangely humbled.

And he will turn the world inside out by choosing service and solidarity before triumph.

Humility here is a kind of spiritual sight.

It's the capacity to perceive rank not as glory,

But as responsibility.

Authority not as a platform,

But as a stewardship.

John's instinctive protest is itself humble because it refuses the false lens of fame.

It refuses to put himself at the centre of a movement that belongs to God.

For us,

Waiting with humility begins with learning to see rightly.

To recognise where God actually is,

Not where our expectations would place God.

Advent trains our eyes to notice the small,

The hidden,

The ordinary as the loci of divine action.

We practice humility by naming when we've misread the signs and by stepping aside when God is moving in a way that we don't predict.

And there's also a holy reversal in John's protest.

He believes baptism is for sinners.

Jesus is sinless.

To John,

It's unthinkable that the sinless one would enter the rite of penitence.

And yet,

Jesus insists.

Not because he needs cleansing,

But because he chooses solidarity.

Jesus' willingness to be baptised by John is the incarnation's humility applied.

God does not simply observe our condition,

God joins it.

He enters the river with humanity,

Takes part in the rituals of repentance and sanctifies the water,

The act,

And every human waiting that meets the divine.

This reversal has deep implications for waiting.

To wait with humility is to accept that sometimes God will meet us on our own terms,

In our small rituals,

Humble practices,

And imperfect sacrifices.

The Messiah doesn't come to command from distance,

But to kneel with us in the mud of life.

Waiting becomes readiness to be seen,

To be touched,

And to be accompanied.

Later in the letters of Paul,

Paul will use the word kenosis,

The self-emptying of Christ,

To describe how God took on human form.

And what John recognises at the Jordan is an enactment of that kenosis,

The divine choosing,

The form of a servant,

The powerful accepting,

The posture of vulnerability.

In Advent,

Waiting with humility is a practice of kenosis.

We let go of our demands that God look a certain way,

Work according to our timetable,

Or to satisfy our ambitions.

We empty ourselves,

Not as a self-punishing act,

But as a readiness to hold more of God's presence.

This emptying is not nothingness.

It's a receptive captivity,

Like a vessel prepared to receive water.

Our emptied self becomes the place where God's surprise can rest.

The humility John shows is both recognition and readiness.

He knows the shape of what is coming and prepares the way by making room,

Rather than space,

For his own importance.

John baptises with water as a sign.

Turn,

Repent,

Prepare.

Jesus baptises with spirit and fire.

But before that greater baptism,

Jesus accepts the ordinary rite.

He honours the small thresholds and makes them sacramental.

Advent invites us to honour small acts of preparation,

Lighting a candle,

Pausing in prayer,

Offering a small mercy,

Sitting in silence.

These aren't merely preludes to something greater.

They're sacramental pathways themselves.

Waiting with humility means treating the ordinary with reverence because God often chooses ordinary things as the carriers of grace.

John's protest to baptise Jesus is the humility that honours the sacredness of simple acts while recognising the greater mystery they point toward.

And finally,

John's words reveal the danger of fame,

Even spiritual fame.

He would prevent Jesus because he does not want the crowd's attention to be misdirected.

John instinctively protects the integrity of God's work from being domesticated by human appetites for spectacle.

There's a humility here that refuses applause.

It's the humility of a person who would rather be anonymous than distorted.

In Advent,

We're invited to the same humility,

To wait without publicity,

To serve without the need for recognition,

To keep vigil without broadcasting our virtue.

This humility doesn't make us small.

It keeps us honest.

So if you're willing,

Sit with the verse for a moment and let it work on you.

Imagine John,

Rough honed with river spray on his cloak,

Eyes that have seen too much and hope enough to keep speaking.

Imagine Jesus walking toward him,

Not with the posture of a king arriving for coronation,

But with a steady gait,

The gait of one who knows why he has come.

Ask yourself,

Where am I ready to be humbled?

Where am I clinging to a role,

A title,

Or a story that keeps me from receiving what God wants to give?

What are the smallest practices of preparation I have been quick to dismiss as insignificant?

What would it mean to let go of applause and simply be present to God's coming?

Waiting with humility is not the absence of power.

It's the refusal to wield it selfishly and the courage to be small enough to be moved and brave enough to be shaped.

As Advent deepens,

Let us practice the humility of John and the humility of Jesus together.

The humility that perceives,

Recognizes and makes room.

The humility that turns our waiting from a performance into a posture.

And the humility that allows God to baptize us in ways we could never orchestrate.

And may our waiting be less a display and more a disposition as we learn to stand in the Jordan of our own lives,

Ready to be surprised,

Prepared to receive,

And modest enough to step aside when God shows up differently than we expected.

So as we come to the end of our reflection today,

I invite you to take a deep breath in and out to let what the Spirit is speaking to you about humility settle and rest as we pray together.

Oh God,

Who stoops to meet us in our smallness,

Teach us the humility of John and the humility of your Son.

Help us to see with clear eyes where we demand the center and where we're called instead to step back and make room.

Give us the courage to be emptied of our pretenses that we might be filled with your Spirit.

When praise tempts us to forget our true vocation,

Silence us with the gentleness of your love.

When fear compels us to grasp for control,

Loosen our hands so they can receive your gift.

Make our waiting a holy waiting,

Simple,

Sober,

Watchful,

And humble.

That when you come,

We may recognize you,

Welcome you,

And be transformed by your presence.

Amen.

So as we go into our day today,

May you be given eyes to see where God is already at work and the humility to step aside so that God may be glorified.

May your waiting be shaped by the quiet courage of John,

Ready to recognize,

Ready to receive,

And ready to obey.

And may you find in your smallness the spaciousness of God's grace,

And may that grace make you bold to live and love as Christ has loved you.

And may the grace,

Peace,

And love of God go with you into the remainder of this day,

Into the remainder of your Advent,

And into every step of your life.

Amen.

Until tomorrow,

My friends,

Grace and peace be with you.

Bye for now.

Reviews

Glorious series but this one opened my eyes and ears to Jesus in a fresh way! And convicted me in a good way!! Thank you Brother!

Enlightening message on humility. Thank you. 🙏🌅💝

Powerful and eye opening for me. God bless you Brother Frederick and thank you.

Waiting with humility 🛐🛐
Thank you 🙏🏻

Peace be with you 🙏🏾🌟

a beautiful reflection thank you Mark!

Thank you ❤️ 🙏