Advent Week 4 2025: Year A – While He Was Asleep – Matthew 1:18-25

(The following was first preached at the 8th Street Church in Oklahoma City, OK, USA)

Matthew 1:18-25

Joseph isn’t waiting for a miracle.

He’s waiting for a wedding.

I officiated a wedding last weekend. Families from different cultures were being woven together. Friends had traveled from afar. There was dancing and laughter and celebration—because that’s what you do at a wedding. Speeches were given. Blessings offered. Toasts raised. Tears of joy fell freely. You could feel the weight of preparation behind it all—time, care, and yes, a good bit of money.

I was there as a friend of the groom, and he was undone. When his bride appeared at the end of the aisle—his love, his best friend—he wept. As she walked toward him, you could see it on his face: a future opening up. A life taking shape. He didn’t know exactly what that future would hold, but he knew who he would walk into it with.

It felt like a perfect Advent image—waiting for promise to become reality.

And I can’t help but imagine something like that had settled into Joseph’s imagination too.

Betrothed to Mary, the wedding day was approaching. Plans were being made. The future felt real.

This is what life is going to be.

And then Matthew tells us—without commentary—that Mary, a virgin, is found to be with child.

That’s it.

No explanation. No background. Just disruption.

Commitment broken.

Future undone.

Many of us know that moment—when life is moving in one direction and suddenly turns, leaving us disoriented, hurt, and unsure what comes next.

Whatever Joseph thought his life would be—it isn’t that anymore.

And this is where Matthew begins the story of Jesus.

Not with angels and songs.

But with disappointment.

When Righteousness Doesn’t Fix It

Matthew tells us Joseph is righteous.

At first, that sounds comforting. But in this context, righteousness doesn’t mean gentle or open-minded. It means faithful to the law. It means doing what is required when things fall apart.

And the law gives Joseph options.

He can expose Mary publicly and protect his reputation.

Or he can dismiss her quietly and spare her shame.

Either way—the relationship ends.

Either way—the future he imagined is gone.

So Joseph chooses mercy.

He decides to dismiss her quietly.

That matters. It tells us who he is.

But it’s still an ending.

Mercy, at this point, still looks like walking away.

When God Speaks in the Night

And just when Joseph believes the story is over—God interrupts.

But not the way we might expect.

In Luke’s Gospel, Mary receives the announcement in the light of day. There are words, explanations, even a song. Her faith is loud, visible, expressive.

But Matthew gives us something different.

Matthew gives us silence.

God comes to Joseph at night—in a dream.

And it doesn’t feel like clarity. It feels like disruption all over again.

There’s no explanation of how this will work.

No reassurance about reputation.

No guarantee of what comes next.

Just instruction.

Do not be afraid.

Take Mary as your wife.

Name the child.

And that last part changes everything.

Because naming the child means claiming him.

It means tying Joseph’s future to this story—whatever it costs him.

And the name he is given is Jesus—“God saves.”

Matthew adds another name: Emmanuel—“God with us.”

Names full of promise… given in a situation full of risk.

Joseph Doesn’t Say Yes

We often say Joseph said “yes” to God.

But if you look closely—he doesn’t say anything at all.

He has no lines.

No speech.

No explanation.

No defense.

He doesn’t sing like Mary. He doesn’t question like others in Scripture.

He just… wakes up.

And does what God asks.

He takes Mary as his wife.

He names the child.

And the story moves forward—not because Joseph understands, but because he takes the next right step.

The Second Disciple

William H. Willimon once said that if Mary is the first disciple, then Joseph is the second.

Mary receives the news directly. She carries the promise in her body.

But not Joseph.

Joseph receives the story secondhand.

His faith rests on her testimony.

He has to trust that what God is doing in her is real—even when it disrupts everything he thought his life would be.

And if we’re honest, most of us are closer to Joseph than to Mary.

Many of you have not had dramatic moments of clarity.

No overwhelming revelation.

No song rising up in your spirit.

Your faith began with someone else’s story.

A parent. A friend. A pastor.

And somewhere along the way, you found yourself saying, “I think I believe.”

And then—you just kept going.

You showed up.

You kept your promises.

You stayed when it would have been easier to leave.

You took the next right step.

That’s Joseph.

And Joseph is you.

Faith in the Ordinary

Discipleship, Matthew seems to say, happens in the ordinary.

In responsibility.

In routine.

In quiet obedience.

Joseph becomes righteous not because he understands everything—but because his obedience absorbs risk.

His faith creates space for God to act.

This is the kind of righteousness Jesus will later describe—a righteousness not rooted in control, but in trust.

And it’s not hard to imagine that Jesus learned this by watching Joseph.

Watching a man who quietly did what was faithful—without needing recognition, without needing certainty.

A righteousness caught, not taught.

Advent Lives Here

This is why the story belongs in Advent.

Because Advent places us exactly where Joseph lived—

Between what has ended

and what has not yet begun.

Between promise

and fulfillment.

Between the life we imagined

and the life we are actually living.

Some of you are there right now.

A relationship ended.

A future unraveled.

A chapter closed too soon.

And Advent whispers:

God is still at work.

Even in the dark.

Even in the silence.

Even when you don’t have words.

A God Who Chooses to Need Us

There’s one more truth here.

God does not force this story into being.

God chooses to work through people.

Through Mary’s yes.

Through Joseph’s quiet obedience.

Without Joseph, this child goes unnamed, unclaimed, and disconnected from Israel’s story.

Which means this:

God binds divine purpose to human faithfulness.

This is a God who chooses to need people.

A God who risks misunderstanding and silence by working through ordinary lives.

God-with-us arrives not through spectacle—

but through participation.

The Way of the Disciple

So here we are.

In Advent.

Waiting.

Hoping.

Staying faithful.

Joseph never sees the whole picture. Some scholars believe he doesn’t even live to see Jesus’ ministry.

His whole life is lived in that space between promise and fulfillment.

Which is exactly where Advent places us.

So we wait.

We trust that God is still at work—even when it feels quiet, unfinished, unresolved.

We trust that “God saves,” because someone listened in the night.

We trust that “God is with us,” because someone took the next step.

And maybe that’s what faith looks like for most of us.

Not certainty.

Not clarity.

Just the quiet courage to do the next right thing.