Egyptian Holiday
The bags are packed, the car is loaded, we’re almost ready to go. This afternoon our family is heading down to the beach for a week. If you take a look around the congregation this morning, you’ll see that lots of families are taking journeys at this time of year. Even Mary, Joseph and their newborn baby Jesus head off on a journey it today’s passage!
Now, I should make clear we’re not going to the beach for a holiday. We’re going down to join the Balnarring Beach Mission team as Camp parents. We’re going to support the young adults and the youth, and to make connections with the families that are there. Despite what you might think, it’s not a holiday but work. Though I can’t say the same for everyone else who’s not here today. And Mary and Joseph’s trip is nothing like a holiday!
Their journey from Nazareth to Bethlehem would’ve been hard enough. It’s about 170km between the two towns. We could drive that in around an hour, but walking at a good pace it would take about four days. You can imagine with Mary being heavily pregnant it probably would’ve taken them a bit longer than that! They hadn’t gone to Bethlehem for a holiday, or because it had a good maternity ward, but because of the census ordered by Emperor Augustus.
As hard as that journey was, the trip from Bethlehem to Egypt would’ve been a lot worse. This time they weren’t setting out from home. Packing wouldn’t have been much of an issue, all they had was what they’d thought to take to Bethlehem. Plus the gifts of the magi, which would’ve helped! The road from Bethlehem to Egypt was harder and longer, around 350 kilometres through a barren, and desolate wilderness. This time they’re not obeying a royal decree, but a divine warning. They’re literally running for their life, fleeing Herod’s henchmen in the middle of the night. You get a sense of the urgency in the angel’s warning in verse 13.
They get out of town in the nick of time. Herod’s furious that his plan to trick the wise men failed. But he’s not deterred. Instead of a surgical strike, he opts for overkill. He orders his men to kill not just every boy, but every child. It’s not just every infant, but every child under the age of two. And he doesn’t just target Bethlehem, but all those in and around the town! It might seem like overkill, but to Herod this was all in a morning’s work. During his reign Herod slaughtered the family of his predecessors. He executed more than half the Sanhedrin and over three hundred court officials. He murdered his own wife, mother-in-law and three of his sons. Killing an estimated 30 children around Bethlehem was nothing for a man paranoid about any threats to his power. He didn’t care where the threat came from, even if it was from God himself. Herod shows the great lengths people will go to in order to eliminate all traces of Jesus and his claim on our lives.
In the face of this opposition, Egypt wasn’t such a bad place for Mary, Joseph and baby Jesus, to be! At the time there was a large Jewish colony in Alexandria, mostly populated by others who’d fled Herod’s reign of terror. But aside from the relative safety, God had another reason for directing them to Egypt. We’re told in verse 15, it’s to fulfil a prophecy but we’ll consider that more in a moment.
Herod’s death provides the opportunity for the family to return home. It looks at first like they’d intended to go back to Bethlehem. But on the way Joseph hears that Archelaus was ruling over Jerusalem and the Judean countryside. Archaelaus was almost as bad as his father, so Joseph’s understandably worried. God instead directs them to the region of Galilee, which was under the control of Antipas. Even though he was also on of Herod’s sons, he was much more moderate! And so Joseph settles with Mary and Jesus in the town of Nazareth.
The whole trip to Egypt and back should be evoking memories. That’s why Matthew quotes the words of Hosea 11:1, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” Just as Israel (the man and his family) went down into Egypt, so too does Jesus and his family. Herod’s slaughter of infants echoes Pharaoh’s actions. Just as God preserved Moses, Just as Moses led Israel, the nation, out of slavery in Egypt, Jesus came out of Egypt, to lead God’s people out of a much worse slavery. The links are strengthened even further in Matthew 4. Jesus temptation in the wilderness mirrors Israel’s time wandering in the wilderness. What’s happening in Jesus’ life isn’t just a repeat of the history of Israel though. It shows that Jesus is the true Israel, he’s God’s true Son. He’s the real deal, the one who fulfils, who completes all of history.
Matthew is also showing us again how God’s in control of history. Nothing can stop God from keeping his promises. In two chapters Matthew’s shown over and over again, at least eight times, how Jesus is the fulfilment of the prophecies and promises that God had given. God is in control and keeps his promises. His words come true. So we can trust them. And we can trust Jesus’ words, all the promises, all the commands that come afterwards in Matthew’s gospel. We can trust everything that God says.
Speaking of which, pun intended, did you notice all the ways God communicates in these two chapters? We’ve been reminded of how he speaks through the prophets. To the wise men, God spoke through signs in the stars. Extraordinary messages like this aside, Psalm 19 and Romans 1 affirm that God reveals something of himself through creation. Five times in this chapter God speaks through dreams and visions of angels. It makes me question how closed we are to God speaking to us in this way. In other parts of the world, in other cultures, God still seems to be speaking in dreams and visions. One member of our church was telling us this week of visions that she’s had. Your first reaction might be like mine, one of caution. It is right to question and interpret, but it’s fair to say that our scepticism might be cutting off one of the ways God would otherwise use to communicate with us. We’ve been reminded of how God speaks through the prophets and words of the Old Testament, to which we can add the writings of the New. But the clearest way God speaks to us is face to face, through the person of his Son. Hebrew’s puts it well:
1Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, 2but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds. 3He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being,
Its through reading God’s word that we best get to know him through his Son. So how will you listen to God’s words this year? Looking back over my sermons, I realised that every summer that I’ve been here, I’ve harped on about Bible Reading plans. But I’m going to do it again, because reading God’s word in it’s entirety is something we need to be continual encouraged to do. Will this be the year that you take on a Bible reading plan? If you already do that’s great. How will you go further? How will you get to know Jesus even better, to hear God speak to you even more? How will you encourage others to listen, to hear, and to respond to God’s words to us?
Joseph is a great example of how we should be willing to do what God commands. God tells him to go ahead with his marriage to Mary and so he does. God tells him to take his new family to Egypt and that night, Joseph leads them off. God tells him it’s time to go back to Israel and so off Joseph goes. Sure, he has his worries, but they’re the worries of a person on the road. He doubts, he presumably prays, but above all he obeys. When God tells Joseph to do something, he doesn’t come up with all these arguments about why it’s a bad idea. He doesn’t try to bargain or barter with God. He just does what God commands. It’s the exact opposite of how Herod reacts. Will you follow God like Joseph, like Mary, like the wise men? When you hear God telling you to do something, to change some aspect of your life, will you do it? Will you go where God tells you to go, even if it means big changes? Will you be willing to give it all up to follow God, to go on the journey that he calls you to? We’ve just celebrated Christmas, the coming of God’s own Son. God held nothing back, God gave everything up for you. Will you do the same for him?
As we approach this New Year, will you trust in God and his promises? Will you listen when God speaks to you? Will you read his Word? And will you do what he asks, what he calls you to do? Will you join me in being people on the road, people on the journey that God calls us to?