Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 2

Day 2: Waiting for God's Promise. Today we reflect on Matthew 1:17 - "So all the generations from Abraham to David are fourteen generations; and from David to the deportation to Babylon, fourteen generations; and from the deportation to Babylon to the Messiah, fourteen generations." 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 neighbourhood monk in docks.

Welcoming you to Day 2 of our Advent 2025 series,

Waiting with Matthew.

Today our focus verse is from Matthew 1 verse 17.

So all the generations from Abraham to David are 14 generations.

And from David to the deportation to Babylon,

14 generations.

And from the deportation of Babylon to the Messiah,

14 generations.

So as we start today,

I invite you to settle yourself,

To take a nice deep breath in and out.

Just give this space and this moment to God.

There's nowhere else to be,

Just here,

Waiting.

When Matthew finishes his long list of names,

He pauses and then he counts.

Three sets of 14 generations,

A rhythm hidden inside the family tree of Jesus.

It's as if he steps back from the canvas of history and invites us to notice the pattern that's woven through it.

Fourteen,

Fourteen,

Fourteen.

Three movements like verses in a hymn,

Each one tracing the rise and fall of God's promise.

From Abraham to David,

Promise spoken and established.

From David to the exile,

Promise betrayed and broken.

From the exile to the Messiah,

Promise reborn and fulfilled.

Matthew's teaching us that waiting isn't random.

It has contour and rhythm.

It breathes in time with God.

Now Abraham hears God say,

Through you all nations will be blessed.

David hears God say,

Your throne shall endure forever.

But neither of them sees the fullness of what those words meant.

Generations come and go,

Holding onto words they can't yet understand.

Sometimes we imagine faith as certainty,

But Matthew's genealogy tells us that faith is endurance.

The courage to live inside a promise without yet knowing how it will come true.

Fourteen generations pass before David.

Fourteen more before the exile.

Fourteen again before Christ.

That's a millennium and a half of waiting and still God's promise holds.

What do we do when the promise feels too slow?

When the timing makes no sense?

Matthew whispers,

Stay within the rhythm.

Trust the slow heartbeat of God's faithfulness working its way through time.

The middle section of Matthew's count from David to the exile is the hardest one to face because that's the chapter when everything falls apart.

The kingdom splinters,

The temple burns,

The chosen people are marched away in chains into exile.

If the first movement was the joy of receiving a promise,

Then this middle movement is the ache of watching it collapse.

Exile is not just geography,

It's a spiritual wound.

It's the silence that follows when what we built doesn't survive the storm.

It's when the promise seems to have failed and we can't tell if God is there anymore.

But the genealogy does something beautiful.

It refuses to stop at the exile.

It keeps counting.

Even in the captivity,

The list goes on.

Jeconiah,

Shelteel,

Zerubbabel,

Abiud.

Names that few of us remember or can hardly even pronounce,

But each one a quiet act of resistance.

Each name says the story is not over.

And maybe,

Maybe this is the truest form of faith.

To keep the record going when everything looks lost.

To say,

We are still here.

We are still waiting.

God's promise will find us again.

But why 14 generations?

Well,

We touched on this yesterday.

The number itself carries meaning.

In Hebrew,

The letters of David's name,

D4 plus V6 plus D4,

Add up to 14.

Matthew is subtly singing David's name three times.

David,

David,

David.

The royal line echoed like a refrain.

He's saying,

Look,

The true son of David has come.

But there's also something deeper here.

Three fourteens make six sevens.

And in Jewish imagination,

Seven is the number of completion of Sabbath.

Which means that with the coming of Jesus,

We entered the seventh seven.

The eternal Sabbath of God.

The waiting has reached its rest and the promise reaches its peace.

So when Matthew counts generations,

He's not just doing math.

He's proclaiming theology.

He's saying that history itself moves towards fulfillment.

And that the Messiah stands at the center of its rhythm.

You and I rarely see that rhythm in our own time.

Our view is way too close to the canvas.

We can only see one brushstroke,

One difficult day,

One unanswered prayer.

But from a distance,

From God's eternal perspective,

From higher up,

Every brushstroke contributes to a masterpiece of mercy.

Waiting becomes bearable when we remember that the artist knows the whole design.

And each advent invites us to locate ourselves somewhere along those three movements of Matthew's story.

Perhaps you find yourself in the first,

Hearing a promise and wondering what it might become.

Perhaps you're living in the second,

Trying to hold faith when dreams have collapsed.

Or maybe,

Maybe you're in the third,

Beginning to glimpse the first light of fulfillment.

Not because the struggle has ended,

But because you sense Christ already stirring within it.

Wherever you are,

My friend,

Remember,

Waiting is not wasted time.

It is sacred time.

It's the space where God's promise ripens.

In Advent,

We don't wait for something new to begin,

But for something ancient to be completed.

The promise made to Abraham,

Sung by David,

Remembered in exile,

Fulfilled in Christ,

Is now entrusted to us,

To you and me.

We are part of the next generation in the count.

Our lives continue the genealogy of grace.

The question is not whether God's faithful,

But whether we will stay long enough to see it.

I invite you to take from today's reflection something that God spoke to you and hold it in your heart.

As we breathe deeply in and out and share this prayer together.

God of the long ark and the slow dawn,

You keep your promises through time that outlasts our understanding.

You are the Lord of the generations,

Faithful to Abraham,

Steadfast to David,

Merciful in exile.

When we grow impatient,

Stretch our sense of time until it can rest within yours.

Teach us to see your faithfulness,

Not in the quick and the easy,

But in the quiet endurance of those who wait with love.

Keep us counting blessings when others count losses.

Keep us naming faith when others name despair.

And let our waiting bear fruit in hope until every promise finds its fulfillment in Christ.

Our beginning and our end.

Amen.

So as you carry what God has spoken to your heart from this reflection,

Friend,

May you learn to trust the rhythm of God's slow faithfulness.

May your waiting become a sacred rhythm,

Not a restless pause.

And may you find in the long unfolding of promise that Christ has already begun to make all things new.

And may grace,

Peace and love go with you into this day and every day as we walk through Advent.

Amen.

Amen.

Until tomorrow,

God's peace be with you.

Reviews

Hard to comprehend the timescales of multiple generations when we get impatient in the hours, minutes and days of our lives. Thank you for the reminder of God’s promises and that of the hope behind the waiting 🙏🏻

Thank you for deepening my understandings of scripture and of waiting with faith. 💝🙏🌅

Thank you 🙏🏻
May we supported by God’s steadfastness when we fall into the world’s quest for instant gratification✝️

I followed your Lent series for my first Lent earlier this year. This is my first season meditating through Advent, and your reflections bring such a deeper understanding and appreciation to the scriptures. So grateful for your continued work on Insight Timer. Your meditations have helped me in my walk with God, especially in the hard times.

a 2nd beautiful reflection on the book of Matthew for Advent, much to sit with, thank you!🙏🏼