Advent2025 Waiting With Matthew 9

Day 9: The Joy of Waiting Fulfilled. Today we reflect on Matthew 2:10–11 – “When they saw that the star had stopped, they were overwhelmed with joy. On entering the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother…” 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 nine of Advent 2025,

Waiting with Matthew.

And today,

As we begin,

I invite you as always to still yourself,

To still your heart,

Your body and your mind,

To sit and rest in the presence of God as we open our ears,

Our minds and our hearts and reflect on the text today from Matthew chapter 2,

Verses 10 and 11.

When they saw that the star had stopped,

They were overwhelmed with joy.

On entering the house,

They saw the child with Mary,

His mother.

The spiritual life carries with it those moments that feel like breath released after a long holding in,

Moments when waiting gives way to wonder,

When the path that felt uncertain suddenly opens in clarity,

When the things that we've been longing for quietly appear before us.

Not always dramatically,

Not always as we expected,

But still unmistakably real.

And today's text brings us into one of those moments.

When they saw that the star had stopped,

They were overwhelmed with joy.

The Magi had been travelling for weeks,

Maybe even months across deserts,

Borders,

Across seasons of doubt and danger and having followed a fragile light across vast distance,

They finally arrive at the end of the star's leading.

The story slows down right here at the moment where waiting touches fulfilment.

And Matthew says that in that moment they were,

Quote,

Overwhelmed with joy.

Now hear that carefully.

Not relieved,

Not quietly pleased,

Not politely grateful,

But overwhelmed with joy,

Overwhelmed,

Flooded,

Consumed,

Taken over by joy so deep it breaks them open.

This is not ordinary joy.

This is the joy that comes at the end of faith,

The joy that comes after persevering,

The joy that's possible only because they kept going when they did not yet know where the journey would end.

The more I read the scripture texts,

The more I realise that joy in scripture is mostly never separated from longing.

It's never the joy of getting everything we want.

It's the joy of finding God,

Usually where we didn't expect,

Usually in ways we couldn't have predicted,

And usually after journeys we never intended to take.

When the Magi's waiting is fulfilled,

It's not fulfilled in a palace or in a city of power or in front of an impressive king.

Their joy is fulfilled in a simple home with a young mother and a child.

A child who can't speak yet,

Who can't rule,

Who doesn't match any of the grandeur that their journey might have suggested.

But Matthew says,

They saw the child with Mary,

His mother,

And this,

This is the moment of revelation.

Not they saw the Messiah,

Not they saw the king they were seeking,

But they saw the child.

The fulfilment of their waiting doesn't look like power.

It looks like vulnerability.

It looks like smallness.

It looks like the kind of God who hides divinity in poverty and flesh and fragility.

This is one of the deepest truths of the gospel.

God comes to us in humble places.

Fulfillment often arrives in forms we never,

Ever could anticipate.

Joy reveals itself in the simplicity of encountering Christ as he truly is,

Not as we imagined him to be.

Let's pause there for a sec.

One of the challenges in life is that we often decide how God should answer our prayers and what fulfillment should look like and when joy should arrive.

But the Magi's journey teaches us something different.

The waiting is purified as we release our expectations and that joy is found when we are willing to receive God as God actually comes to us.

They enter the house,

A place that's ordinary,

Domestic,

Unremarkable.

The incarnation is always like this.

God is hidden in the familiar,

Disguised as the ordinary,

Made flesh in places that we might overlook.

And yet for the Magi,

This is the place of revelation.

This is where the star leads.

Although they've traveled a long distance,

The true journey was always interior.

Their waiting has prepared them to recognize holiness in humility.

Their longing has trained their hearts to perceive God in the small and the vulnerable.

Their perseverance has shaped them to hold wonder with both reverence and tenderness.

Matthew tells us that when they see Jesus,

They fall to their knees.

This is not just an act of worship.

It's the posture of a heart that has finally come home.

Joy overwhelms them because the one they thought they were searching for has been searching for them all along.

Their joy is not just in finding a child.

Their joy is in finding themselves in the presence of God.

The Magi then embody the deepest paradox of waiting.

That the fulfillment of our longing isn't always found at the end of the road,

But in the one who meets us there.

Their journey ends in worship,

As every journey of waiting eventually must.

But their joy doesn't erase their waiting.

Their joy transfigures it.

The waiting becomes meaningful.

The desert becomes part of the blessing.

The uncertainty becomes part of the revelation.

The longing becomes part of their praise.

Every step of their journey,

Every doubt,

Every stretch of sand,

Every mile of fatigue has been preparing them for this moment of beholding.

And perhaps this is the real invitation of the Magi to us today.

To trust that our waiting is never wasted,

And that our seeking is never pointless,

And that God is shaping us in the long arc of longing so that when joy arrives,

We're able to receive it fully,

Deeply,

And wholeheartedly.

Is there anything in your life right now that feels unfinished?

Were you waiting for guidance,

Or clarity,

Or consolation?

Where does joy feel far,

Or delayed,

Or impossible?

The Magi remind us the star does stop.

The journey does bring us to Christ.

God does fulfill what God begins.

And the joy on the other side of faithful waiting,

It's not thin,

Or fleeting,

Or partial.

It's overwhelming.

It is the joy of recognizing God with us.

God before us.

God beside us.

God in the place where the star rests.

And so as we hold in our hearts the things that the Spirit has been speaking to us today,

I share this prayer with you.

God of all our waiting,

You know the longings we carry.

The questions that sit quietly beneath our days,

And the hopes that have taken us farther than we expected to go.

Teach us to trust the journey you place before us.

Give us hearts that persevere,

Eyes that can see holiness in humble places,

And spirits ready to be surprised by joy.

When our waiting feels heavy,

Lighten us with hope.

When the way is unclear,

Steady us with your presence.

And when we finally arrive at the places you have prepared for us,

Let our hearts open in worship,

And wonder,

And in joy that overflows.

And so my friend,

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

May you find joy waiting for you in the places where you least expect.

May your journey lead you to Christ in humility,

Tenderness,

And truth.

And may the God who guided the Magi guide you into overwhelming joy.

And may grace,

Peace,

And love guide every step you take,

This day and always.

Amen.

And so until tomorrow,

My friends,

May grace and peace be with you.

Amen.

Reviews

Thank you! I feel joy in me as I wait... 💝🙏🌅

🙏🏾

Thank you 🙏🏻
Overwhelming joy! May it be so🛐

A beautiful reflection!