Advent is almost over. And we have waited. We have waited and we have heard the call to be patience in our waiting, ready to serve in whatever ways God calls us to serve and to repent, to turn back to God in order that God may be central to us in our life. And so here we are, only a few short days away from celebrating the birth of our Saviour, only a few days away from one of the most important days on the Christian calendar. And we think we know what we are waiting for. We think, from the nicely parcelled out readings given to us this Advent, that we now have a handle on what this season means. We think we have some measure of understanding for what God has in store for our lives.

That is what Joseph thought, as he sought to live his life out as a good and righteous man, a man who held fast to the ways that his society and religion deemed acceptable and right. He was to be married to a young woman, a woman he looked to make a life with, a woman who he believed wanted to make a life with him. And then, in what must have been a terrible shock to him, his future bride tells him that she is pregnant. He must have been quite horrified and hurt. Within the culture of that day and age, he would have been with his rights to decry her to the public officials and have her stoned. Yet, for all of his presumed anger over Mary’s apparent betrayal, he still chooses to dismiss her quietly. He doesn’t want to see her killed, although he can no longer have a future with her. But before he is able to go his own way and leave her to her fate, he dreams a dream, wherein he is told the truth of Mary’s pregnancy and he is called not to abandon her. Everything about his world has suddenly been turned upside down. Not only is his fiancée pregnant and he is not the father, but he discovers that indeed, the child has been conceived by the Holy Spirit and he is now commanded to be husband to Mary and father to this child. Nothing about that would have made sense to him. He was trying to live a righteous life and this tested him in every way possible. God’s plans for any of us are often not the plans that we might have had for ourselves. God’s plans are often terrifying, sometimes dangerous and almost never easy. If Joseph had walked away from Mary and ignored God’s call, he would have probably lived a much more sedate and safe life. Instead, guided by a dream, he takes Mary as his wife. He then returns to Bethlehem, his ancestral home, where this child is born and visited by both the most common of men (the shepherds) and the most holy of men (the wise men), and is then forced to flee from Herod to Egypt in order to preserve the life of his family. Joseph is an often neglected figure in Scripture, yet here, in this story, he trusted in God completely, even when nothing of what God told him made sense or seemed appropriate according to tradition and law. He followed anyway, even when his entire life was sent off course. He trusted in his God and saved the life of his wife and his son, a child who was so important for all of God’s plans here on earth. His trust changed everything.

God also breaks into our lives in profound and sometimes distressing ways. God calls us not to the nice, safe life of a “Christian”, but to something far more radical, life in Christ. For God redefines all of what we once understood to be “right” and “wrong”, “good” and “bad”. We see someone who is homeless and our society would tell us that they are in such a position because they failed in their own life. We should therefore shun them. God would have us see through any societal notions of failure and see instead the person. Easy to do once or twice in a lifetime? What about ever day? What about every moment of our lives? This is only a small part of a “life in Christ”. It is the kind of radical life that is governed by a God who is not a tame God, or a God who is in anyway definable. This is a God who changes everything, alters everything, redefines the very ways in which we live our life. We cannot plan for what this might mean in our lives. That is not what we are called to do. Instead, we are called to trust, which for us, for any person, is infinitely more difficult.

Paul also experienced this life altering God. For he, like Joseph, would have considered himself to be a righteous man, one who did his duty according to the law and the covenant of Yahweh. He went even further then Joseph did, for in his zealous quest to eliminate those who had perverted Yahweh’s covenant, he was one of the worst persecutors of Christ’s followers. He believed that this was what God wanted of him. Yet on a road approaching Damascus, his whole life was changed. Christ intercedes and Paul’s life was never the same again. The very group he sought to destroy he then joined and became one of their greatest evangelists and defenders. The only step he was asked to take was to trust and to know that he would not be alone in his new life. God would be there, guiding him always. And so when we hear the words from St. Paul at the beginning of his letter to the Romans, we read the words of a changed man, a man whose life is now given in service and love to his God and Saviour. And every step of the way, he could only trust in God and ask for that guidance to continue.

So as Advent closes, as we wait in readiness, repentance and patience, let us also wait in trust, trust in a God who can do infinitely more then we could ever expect or imagine, a God who is to us the very author of our existence. Often our trust falters, but it is renewed through the grace of God in our lives, grace which is given to us even in those moments when we think that we can trust nothing. We wait, no longer knowing what exactly we can expect for our lives, but knowing that in whatever we are called to, God will be there, always. We wait. And we trust. And our eyes gaze to the future, wondering what God may indeed be about to do.

Amen