Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 5

Day 5: Waiting For Emmanuel. Today we reflect on Matthew 1:23 - "Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall call him Emmanuel, which means, 'God is with us.'" 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 5 of our Advent 2025 series,

Waiting with Matthew.

Today our focus verse will come from Matthew chapter 1 verse 23,

Where Matthew writes,

Look,

The virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

And they shall name him Immanuel,

Which means God with us.

As always as we begin,

I invite you to find yourself in a comfortable position,

To breathe deeply in and out,

Allowing yourself to relax and to settle,

As we ask God to open our ears,

Our minds and our hearts,

As today we come to one of the most treasured lines in all of scripture,

A line so familiar that we risk hearing it with soft ears instead of astonished hearts.

Again,

Look,

The virgin shall conceive and bear a son,

And they shall name him Immanuel,

Which means God is with us.

This isn't simply a prophecy fulfilled,

This is the beating heart of the gospel,

This is the reason for Advent,

The shadow behind every candle,

The longing behind every prayer,

God with us.

Not God above us or beyond us,

Not God against us,

But God with us.

This is the truth humanity has been aching for from the beginning.

And yet,

Matthew gives it to us,

Not as a moment of triumph,

But as a moment of waiting,

A promise spoken into uncertainty,

A word delivered in a dream to a man who doesn't yet understand how any of this can possibly be.

And it's worth us taking some time today to reflect on the weight of that name,

Because names in scripture are never casual,

They reveal something of the identity and mission of the one who bears them.

And so when the angel declares the child's name,

He's revealing the deepest truth about God's posture towards the world.

God doesn't send Immanuel to judge from afar,

God enters the story from within,

God steps inside the human condition with its breath and bone,

Its joy and its sorrows,

Its frailty and its fierce beauty.

God is with us means there is no human place God refuses to enter,

No grief too heavy,

No night too dark,

No story too complicated,

No heart too wounded.

If it is human,

Immanuel will go there.

In Advent,

We're not waiting for an idea,

We're not waiting for a theology,

We're not even waiting for an event,

We are waiting for a presence.

Now Matthew quotes Isaiah 7.

14,

A text spoken into a moment of political fear and uncertainty.

Isaiah addressed a king who was terrified of losing control,

A king who wanted assurance that his enemies would be defeated,

And instead of military strategy,

Isaiah offers a sign,

A child,

A child whose very existence would testify that God had not abandoned his people.

Matthew takes that ancient promise and reveals its fullest meaning,

The real sign isn't simply a child born in troubled times,

The sign is God choosing to take the human journey himself.

The prophecy lands in Matthew's gospel as a quiet explosion,

A whisper carrying the weight of eternity,

It says to Joseph and to Israel and to us,

God is coming close,

Closer than you dared to hope,

Even closer than you thought possible,

Even closer still than your fear,

Your confusion,

Your sin or your sorrow.

God is for you,

Not in theory,

But in the flesh.

But let's face it,

Waiting for Emmanuel is the hardest kind of waiting,

Because we often think waiting for God means waiting for answers,

Or waiting for things to get better,

Or waiting for direction,

Or waiting for a miracle,

But Emmanuel teaches us that the deepest waiting is waiting to truly trust that God is already with us.

The hardest waiting isn't external,

It's internal.

It is waiting for our hearts to soften enough to believe the presence we long for is already near and already here.

Joseph hears this promise at a moment when everything feels fragile,

He has no blueprint for what lies ahead,

He has no clarity about how this will affect his life or his reputation or his plans,

And into that vulnerability comes a single life-altering word,

Emmanuel.

Have a think about this,

What if the presence of God doesn't eliminate uncertainty but accompanies us through it?

What if Emmanuel doesn't mean you will understand but rather you will never be alone?

What if Advent waiting isn't waiting for God to arrive,

But waiting for our souls to realise that God already has arrived?

Think for a moment too about what with us,

Those two words,

With us,

Actually mean.

If God is with us,

Then God has chosen the mess and the miracle of being human.

God's chosen hunger,

God has chosen exhaustion,

God has chosen tears that fall hot and heavy in the night,

God has chosen laughter that aches with beauty,

God has chosen the vulnerability of love and the risk of rejection.

Emmanuel doesn't stand at the edge of the world offering pronouncements,

Emmanuel stands in the middle of it,

Offering presence.

Emmanuel stands in hospital rooms,

Emmanuel stands in classrooms and staff rooms,

Emmanuel stands in quiet kitchens before dawn,

Emmanuel stands beside the one who feels forgotten,

Emmanuel stands inside the heart that feels too wounded to pray.

Emmanuel means no experience is God forsaken because God has chosen to inhabit the whole human condition from infant breath to final sigh.

Joseph's task is simply to trust the promise,

Not to understand it,

Not to control it,

Not to solve it,

Just to carry it,

To protect it and make space for it to grow.

And in this,

Joseph becomes the patron saint for all who wait for God in uncertainty,

The quiet ones,

The faithful ones,

The ones who don't have the words but offer their yes anyway.

Waiting for Emmanuel does not mean waiting for perfect conditions,

It means waiting with open hands rather than clenched ones.

It means letting God be God,

The God who refuses to stay at a distance.

Today's reflection invites us to rest in this truth that God's presence is not something we achieve,

It's something we awaken to.

Emmanuel is already here,

Unhurried,

Unafraid and utterly faithful.

Our task in Advent is to prepare a room in our hearts,

Not for a distant deity but for a God who has already moved into the neighbourhood.

We wait not for distance to collapse but for awareness to deepen.

We wait to see what has always been true,

That we are not alone,

We never were and we never will be.

This is the promise that anchors every other promise,

This is the hope that steadies every fear and this is the light that shines in every darkness.

God is with us,

God is with you,

Right now,

Right here.

And I ask you today to simply hold that truth as we pray.

Emmanuel,

God who chooses closeness over distance,

Presence over power and vulnerability over majesty,

Teach our hearts to trust that you are truly with us.

When fear rises,

Whisper your nearness,

When doubt grows heavy,

Remind us that you have woven yourself into our human story.

When we feel unworthy,

Show us again the tenderness of a God who chooses to dwell among us.

Come into the places where we struggle to believe in love,

Come into the corners of our hearts where hope feels thin,

Come into the uncertain spaces and breathe your steady faithful presence.

Emmanuel,

God with us,

May our waiting make us more spacious,

More trusting and more attuned to your quiet arrival.

Amen.

And so as we rise from this time to go into our day,

May you discover Emmanuel even in the places you least expect.

May you feel God's nearness not as pressure but as peace and may you awaken again and again to the truth that God is with you fully,

Faithfully,

Forever.

Amen.

And may grace,

Peace and love go with you this day and every day.

Amen.

Peace be with you,

My friends,

Until tomorrow.

Bye for now.

Reviews

🙏Thank you 🙏

Loved this message - God is already with us. Thank you Brother 🙏🏻

A person who sat in darkness (me) has seen a great Light. Thank you Brother Frederick for today.

Thank you for this reflection of assurance that God is WITH us. 🌅💝🙏

Thank you! The Holy Spirit guided me share this very message with my seniors yesterday for Holy Eucharist visits. We are never alone✝️

God is with us! Amen 🙏🏾
Have a blessed day 🕯️

such a beautiful advent devotional, thank you for each day thus far!!

Great insights on God with us! 🌟

Thank you ❤️