Dr. Christopher Graham

Advent 4 2025 – Unsettled Waiting
Dr. Christopher Graham
Isaiah 7:10-17, Matthew 1:18-25

“Who is the king of glory? It is the Lord, strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle. Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in.

Who is the king of glory? The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory. In the name of the living God, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.” — Psalm 24:8-10

Our scripture this morning from Isaiah 7 and Matthew 1 speak of descendants of David. Of course, we were reminded from Paul’s letter to the Romans that Jesus himself is the Son of David, the Son of David, par excellence. But this morning, in the spirit of Advent, the season of waiting, we focus on the other sons of David in the passages, the ones who are waiting.

There are, of course, different types of waiting. There is the purely exuberant waiting for some thrilling pleasure or event, as in, we can hardly wait. It is Will Ferrell portraying an awaiting Santa in Elf.

We celebrated that sort of waiting last Sunday during Gaudete. At the other end of the spectrum, there is pure dread. In fact, this sort of waiting is so severe that I don’t have a movie that I think captures it, and I dare not try and even conjure up thoughts because it is so severe for some of us.

Most of our waiting is somewhere in between. There is, for example, the waiting of thrill seekers who, like a nice blend of exuberance and dread. And then there is the waiting we read about in Isaiah 7 and Matthew 1.

It is, as I understand it, an unsettled waiting. It is a waiting akin to what my children experienced as they tell it, when they were in junior, high, in their early high school years, when I was the stay-at-home parent, and when I would send with them to school, what they later told me they called Daddy notes. Daddy notes happened when I got some bad news from the school.

I was in my PhD year, so I was writing intensely. I was thinking deeply. Jill was working full time, and so when I got those messages from school and wanted to find out what was going on, I would sit down and write handwritten note and then give it to my children to take to the teacher.

And they have told me that this was a sort of unique sort of unsettled waiting. because they knew I was going to get to the truth of the matter. Now, if they were responsible, if for some reason they had been negligent, then the teacher would tell me that and there would be consequences at home. But my children also knew that sometimes I had no problem calling out the teacher’s negligence.

Either way, it made for a rather intense waiting leading to a very intense meeting at school. The sort of waiting, I think, is going on this morning is that sort of waiting for both Ahaz and Joseph. First, Isaiah, we should note that our reading from Isaiah from chapter 7 comes long before the books of comfort, which start in Isaiah 40.

In fact, you may remember that in the prior chapter in Isaiah, in Isaiah chapter 6, is where we read that famous passage from Isaiah, which Isaiah sees the Lord high and lifted up, and he is called to proclaim His word, God’s word, to his people. And you remember that Isaiah asks, what shall I what shall I say? And God says, go and tell this people, keep on listening, but do not perceive.

Keep on looking, but do not understand. Then I, Isaiah said, how long? And God answered, he answered, “Until cities are devastated and without inhabitants.”

Houses are without people, and the land is utterly desolate. That’s chapter 6. And then in chapter 7, we read about Uziah’s grandson, Ahaz.

We heard it read this morning for us. Ahaz and God’s people are terrified because their enemies are allies against them and threatening them. And what God says to them is,

“Fear not,” Isaiah chapter 7. “It shall not stand, nor shall it come to pass.” Then the Lord spoke again to Ahab, saying verse 10, “Ask a sign for yourself from the Lord, your God. Make it deep as shale or highest heaven,” that Ahab said, “I will not ask, nor will I test the Lord.”

Now, maybe we take this as a sign of humility, but what we know from 2 Kings is this. Ahaz was 20 years old when he became king, and he reigned in Jerusalem 16 years. Unlike David his father, he did not do what was right in the eyes of the Lord his God.

He followed the ways of the kings of Israel and even sacrificed his son in the fire, engaging in the detestable practices of the nations the Lord had driven out before the Israelites. At Ahaz was not a man of faith, a good king. So he says, I will not ask the Lord, nor will I test him, perhaps in a show of false humility, perhaps outright stubbornness.

Then, the response come to him, “Listen now, O House of David, is it too slight a thing for you to try the patience of men that you will try the patience of my God as well? Therefore, the Lord himself will give you a sign. Behold, a virgin will be with child and bear a son, and she will call his name Emmanuel.”

In Isaiah’s context, in Ahaz’s context, then the sign, a virgin who will be Emmanuel, God with us, is not the theme for a cute tune to be sung while sipping a hot beverage on a chilly night around the fire. As God often proclaims through his prophets, God expects his people to have faith in him and to faithfully reflect and manifest his justice and mercy. And he proclaims that in his faithful love for them, he will not allow them to stay in their state of unfaithfulness, lacking mercy.

Even if that means unconventional means to get them to hear him. This is, after all, the Lord of hosts, the king of glory, strong and mighty, even the Lord mighty in battle. But that is the faithlessness of Ahaz, the son of David.

What about the faithful son we read about in Matthew chapter 1? Joseph. It is telling that Matthew begins his gospel with a genealogy, you may remember, stretching back the book of the genealogy of Jesus Christ, the Son of David, the Son of Abraham, is how he begins.

About midway down in that genealogy, we read about Uziah, and we read about Ahaz before we get to the end of the genealogy, in which we read of Jacob was born Joseph, the husband of Mary, by whom was born Jesus, who is called the Christ. For all the reasons Matthew may have begun his gospel account with a genealogy, at least part of his reason is to remind readers of the fact that the God who was active in Isaiah’s day and Ahaz’s day is the God who is active in his day. The God of Adam is the God of David, is the God of Ahaz, is the God of Isaiah, is the God of Joseph.

The angel even addresses him, Son of David. And as the Son of David, Joseph is pulled into the story. What a story.

What drama. Indeed, Joseph finds himself in a bind. Mary was pledged to be married to Joseph, but before they came together, she was found to be pregnant through the Holy Spirit.

Joseph, her husband, was faithful to the law and yet did not want to expose her to public disgrace. He had in mind to divorce her quietly. As happened to his ancestor Ahaz, so now Joseph receives a word from the Lord, “Fear not.” Unlike his faithless ancestor, Joseph obeys.

Over and over again, we read, Joseph obeys. He is faithful in spite of his inclination to fear, to get himself out of the drama. Now, there’s a temptation at just this point, to make a turn here and draw a very principled and moralistic lesson from our readings based on these experiences of the sons of David.

Something like don’t be a faithless Ahaz, son of David. Be a faithful Joseph, son of David, as you follow the Son of David. It’s pretty catchy, actually.

And there’s certainly a lesson to be learned at that level. But I want us to focus this morning on what the two sons of David had in common. That is, they were both waiting as we this morning, are in our posture of waiting on this fourth Sunday of Advent.

Both of them were presented with a word from the Lord, and what it says is something that should result in unsettled waiting because it is from a God who acts in ways we cannot expect. It is a God who can make a virgin have a child. A creator who will come into the very center of the action himself as a creature.

Emmanuel, God with us. Jesus, God saves. Each of these notions should result in a troubled waiting.

And I want to recommend that as we finish our Advent season in the next few days, we allow ourselves to take a posture of this unsettled waiting. Just think about those notions, the Virgin giving birth, Emmanuel, the one who saves. I have printed in your bulletin this morning a quote from N.T. Wright that I’d like to read for us because I think it’s powerful about the Virgin birth, the virgin conception.

Wright said this. The virginal conception speaks powerfully of new creation, something fresh happening within the old world, beyond the reach and dreams of the possibilities we currently know. And if we believe that the God we’re talking about is the creator of the world who longs to rescue the world from its corruption and decay, then an act of real, new creation, anticipating, in fact, the great moment of Easter itself might just be what we should expect.

However, tremblingly, if and when this God decides to act to bring about this new creation about, the real objection to the virginal king conception is not primarily scientific. By the way, if that’s your hang up, then you’re chasing a red herring Wright says, “It is deeper than that. It is the notion that a new world really might be starting up within the midst of the old.”

And this spectacular reality, this virgin conception, this virgin birth, serves another reality that God, the God of hosts, the Lord Almighty, strong and mighty, that he gets up all in our business, that he doesn’t let us stay apart from him. Is it for Joseph a comfort to know that he and Mary will raise a savior? Because really, a savior means a savior complex.

Paul learned it the hard way getting knocked off his horse, and God still works that way. Matthew records a God who works immeasurably more than we can think or imagine. We pray thy kingdom come, yes, but today, thy will be done, yes, but how?

He will come to judge the living and the dead. Yes, but how? In his book, Your God is too safe.

Mark, Buchanan describes the situation many of us find our ourselves in and the consequences of this situation. He says, “More and more, we see God as safe. In one sense, of course, it’s true, God is safe.

He is the one in whom we find refuge, our hiding place, a shield about us. He is the God of all comfort. But that’s not what I mean when I say we’ve made God too safe.

I mean that we want him to be comfortable rather than comforting. I mean that we want him to be peaceable, to keep his peace, to be docile, rather than to be peacemaking and peace giving. We often get stuck because we want a God who is too safe.

And then we find, Buchanan says, in the soft logic of our half-baked theology that a “too safe God has no power to get us unstuck. His arm is too short for that, and he doesn’t care anyway. He does doesn’t so much forgive sin; he accommodates it.”

End quote. And so, just as both sons of David are faced with waiting for a God to fulfill what he promises, can we allow ourselves to take a posture of this unsettled waiting in these last days of Advent? To give in to waiting on and abiding in a God who has done, is doing and will do immeasurably more than we can ever think or imagine, allowing ourselves today and in the next four days to let go of our safe conceptions of a tamed and domesticated God and lean into the mystery of faith that we proclaim.

Christ, as the incarnate Word by whom and through whom all things came into being died. That truly dead, entombed to Christ, rose again as the firstborn of the dead. That Christ will come to judge the living and the dead, and His kingdom will have no end. Can we allow ourselves to be unsettled by the God?

The Lord Almighty, full of glory and power, who with that glory says, “Fear not.” In our times as faithless sons who in pseudo piety refuse to look for a sign, will we allow ourselves to face the unsettling promise that the Lord will draw near in unexpected ways for our salvation and the salvation of many, trusting only in the words, fear not. In our times as faithful sons who in true piety, comply and seek peace, will we allow ourselves at those times to face the unsettling promise of the Lord, who will draw near in unexpected ways for our salvation and the salvation of many, trusting His promise. fear not.

In faith, today, we call out. “Lift up your heads, O you gates, and be lifted up, you everlasting doors, and the king of glory shall come in. Who is the king of glory?”

The Lord of hosts, he is the king of glory.