Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the
Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Rise, take the child and his
mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is
about to search for the child, to destroy him." And he rose and took the
child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until
the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the
prophet, "Out of Egypt I called my son." Matt 2:13-15 ESV
When the Wise Men
failed to return to Herod, he became angry and ordered all
male children under two in Bethlehem to be killed. He wanted to destroy the Messiah before He
could grow to manhood and challenge his authority. At the time, Herod was already in his
seventies.
Why was Herod
worried about Jesus. Histories showed
that Herod cared little or nothing for his own children, so why did he worry
about who would rule after he died? If
Jesus had become a worldly king, he could only have done it when he reached
manhood. By then Herod would been over a hundred, if he were alive at all! Why
should he care whether or not Jesus would have grown to take his throne? It is likely from what we know about Herod's
paranoid insanity, he probably believed that he would live forever!
Herod tried to kill
Jesus but failed. Joseph had been warned
in a dream to flee immediately for Egypt. The gifts the Wise Men gave were
worth a lot of money, and would have been more than enough to provide them with
supplies and a place to stay when they got there. Without the warning and
without the resources that God provided, Herod may have succeeded.
Egypt may seem like
a strange place to flee, but in Jesus' day, it would be the most logical place
to go. There were three great centers of
Jewish culture in the First Century-- Galilee was one, Judea was another, and Egypt was the third. According to many
scholars, there were more Jews in Alexandria than in Jerusalem.
Each Jewish center
longed for the Messiah and each had certain prophecies that indicated the
Messiah would come to them. The flight
to Egypt meant that the Jews living in Egypt could rightfully claim Jesus came
from out of them. God settled the debate
between these three centers as to where the Messiah would come from by
arranging for Him to come from all
three!
God has a plan for
all our wanderings. We have no idea why
we experience the troubles we do, especially not while we are enduring
them. Joseph probably had no idea why
they went to Egypt, but their trip would
later be a witness to future generations that God's prophecy had been
fulfilled.
In the midst of our
wanderings, God provides. The Wise Men's
gifts must have at the time seemed extravagant, but they turned out to be
needed provision. Without them they
could not have traveled so freely.
When (not if) God
calls us out of our peace and comfort into an unknown future, He will not leave
us. God was with Joseph and his family
in Egypt, just as He was with them in Nazareth and Bethlehem.
We leave behind all
earthly things eventually. We leave the nursery for the school house and our
parent's homes for marriage and career.
We leave our jobs for retirement, lose our spouses to death or divorce, leave our home for retirement homes or to
live with others, and eventually leave our bodies behind as well. But in all
the changes of life, God remains constant.
Wherever He calls us, even in Egypt, He will go with us.
"Father, thank you for the journeys of life.
Help me to see that whatever places or people I must leave behind, You will
never leave me or forsake me. In Jesus' name. Amen
