Egypt figures large in God’s story. Abraham, father of nations, journeyed there to escape famine in the land of Canaan. Hagar, mother of Ishmael, came from Egypt. Joseph, son of Jacob, was betrayed by his brothers and sold to become a slave in Egypt. Because God was with Joseph he prospered there, was released from his slavery, and became the second highest ruler in all of Egypt. It was to Egypt that his brothers came from Canaan, seeking food because Canaan was again in the grip of a great famine. There they were reunited with Joseph, and there their whole clan relocated, given fertile delta land by Pharaoh. And there their descendents became slaves to Egyptian rulers. After 400 years of slavery God raised up Moses, raised as an Egyptian nobleman, to lead his people to freedom and to their own promised land.
Solomon’s adversaries fled to Egypt for comfort and support, and raised rebellion against him from there. After Solomon’s death and the division of Israel into two kingdoms there ensued a period of time when relations with Egypt ebbed and flowed…sometimes in alliance, sometimes in battle. Israel became the battleground for the armies of Egypt against the Assyrians, and then the Babylonians, and finally, the Persians.
The angel told Joseph to take the boy, Jesus, and his mother, Mary to Egypt until it was safe for them to return. It was a journey of about 250 miles. It is my opinion that the gifts of the Magi provided the funds for the voyage and for relocating to a new home. Joseph was a man of marketable skills. As a carpenter/mason, he could have found work in any settlement, providing the stability his young family needed. The hand and protection of God is all over this story.
If Herod was a metaphor for darkness, Egypt was a metaphor for everythingism. Egyptian religion had animistic roots and was always completely polytheistic, worshipping everything from sacred bulls and calves to trees to cataracts of the Nile to the sun…almost ad infinitum. But it didn’t matter. They were where they were surrounded by the will of God. In their lives he was supreme. As Jesus later counseled his apostles, “I have told you these things, so that in me you may have peace. In this world you will have trouble. But take heart! I have overcome the world.”
So into a land characteristic of the confusion of a world desperate for meaning and being God sent the light of the world, the good shepherd, the healer of souls and nations. Jesus and his family lived there for a time. And when Herod had died, crazy and murderous to the end, the angel came to Joseph again and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” And that’s what Joseph did, heading north, going past Bethlehem and Jerusalem, and finally settling the town of Nazareth in the region of Galilee.
The pressures and the voice of the world are ever with us. When we are tempted to leave the path God sets before us, we would do well to remember that God is with us too.
Prayer: “Great Father, I thank you for another day of life. I thank you for the breath I draw and the strengths and abilities of this body. I thank you for your presence in my life. As I engage the responsibilities and opportunities of this day, I simply ask you to help me to do well at the things you set before me. This is the beginning of a new year, and I know that time itself is your creation. I wish to never just “kill time.” Use me as your instrument so that, in me, time lives powerfully, with great joy and faithfulness. I am yours. Amen.”