Hello, my “Walking with Jesus” friends around the world.
They say the years of a child, from infancy through about age 7, are profound in shaping their understanding of the world into which they have been born. So, think back a moment, where were you born and where did you spend the first years of your life? How did that place, and those years affect who you are today and your understanding of our world?
These days we are on a 30-day journey toward Christmas and I’m attempting to help us see how God was using major events and people in the Old Testament, over the course of hundreds of years, to point forward to the cataclysmic, once in all of history event, when God came to live on earth for a few years in the person we know as Jesus Christ.
Yesterday I left you considering the similarities of the traumatic birth experiences of both Moses and Jesus, even though their births were separated by almost 1500 years of time! Today let’s look at God’s amazing provision for those early formative years of life when both boys and their mothers were facing the great challenges of birth at a most inconvenient time and place in history.
Moses was born into a Hebrew slave family when the Pharoah had proclaimed all Hebrew baby boys should be killed at birth. Exodus 2 gives us the miraculous story of how God intervened and not only spared Moses’ little life but enabled him to be nursed by his own birth mother, and then adopted by the Pharaoh’s daughter and raised in the palace of Egypt. We presume those early years for Moses included all the privileges and pampering a prince in the royal family would receive.
The Biblical record does not tell us what Moses knew of his birth family or his family heritage as he adjusted to life as an adopted member of the Egyptian royal family. But it’s not difficult for us to imagine how thrilled his birth family was that God had not only spared Moses’ life from execution but was blessing him with all the favor of the palace. I imagine they often sat around their little hut, exhausted after a long day of slave work, wondering what kind of day Moses had had that day and who he would eventually become as a result of starting his life as an Egyptian prince!
Let’s turn the time clock forward about 1500 years to Bethlehem and the birth of Jesus! Both little boys, Moses and Jesus, were born in frightening times. Apparently, Joseph and Mary did not rush to leave Bethlehem after the birth of Jesus, attempting to return and settle in Nazareth from which they had come for the Roman census. Instead, it appears Joseph searched for work, perhaps as a carpenter, his trade, to provide for his little family. The visit of the Magi, as reported to us by Matthew one of the disciples of Jesus, uses two words that lead me to believe Jesus may have been perhaps 2 years old or so when the Magi arrived. Matthew writes: “When they saw the star they were overjoyed. On coming to the HOUSE, they saw the CHILD with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshipped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented Him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh…”(Matt. 2:10,11)
Because the word “HOUSE” is used and we know Jesus was born in the animal stable, this suggests Joseph has found a house for his little family to live in, at least temporarily. And the word “Child” rather than baby or infant, suggests Jesus was no longer a baby. I’ve often wondered what a scene this was for the neighborhood in Bethlehem where Joseph, Mary and Jesus were living at the time? We assume these Magi had ridden camels since they had traveled a very long distance from the far east. (Matt. 2:1) We assume these Magi traveled with some attendants who helped care for their animals and perhaps provided some security as they traveled. Can you imagine this caravan filling a small side street in Bethlehem seeking child Jesus? This scene is as close as Moses and Jesus get to a shared experience of royal blessing and honor during their childhoods.
Very shortly after the Magi left Bethlehem, returning to the country from which they had come, everything suddenly changed for Joseph, Mary and the child Jesus. Matthew tells us King Herod, who while not the Roman Caesar, was a ruthless, cruel man who had great authority in Palestine, the region where Jesus was born. Believing he was duped by the Magi, King Herod immediately put into motion a plan very much like that of the Egyptian Pharaoh 1500 years before… kill the young boys! Matthew gives us this gruesome account: “When King Herod realized he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who where two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.” (Matt. 2:16)
In our lifetimes we have seen and heard reports of outrageous atrocities of the slaughter of men, women and especially children in many parts of the world. Sometimes it’s called ‘genocide’, other times ‘ethnic cleansing’, other time it’s called ‘abortion’ or ‘infanticide’. I doubt any of us can imagine the terror of the news of the approaching slaughter of young lives or the trauma especially for mothers. Moses’ mother faced it when she put Moses in the basket and set him afloat on the Nile knowing the Pharaoh had ordered the death of all baby Hebrew boys. Where would the river currents take that little basket with its precious cargo? Who will find it, what will they do to the baby? As we saw yesterday, ONLY GOD could have devised such a miraculous, remarkable plan for that baby boy Moses.
Mary faced a similar trauma when suddenly one night she was awakened by her husband Joseph with a frightened look on his face as he said to her, ‘Get up, we must leave Bethlehem immediately’. Mary rubbed the sleep from her eyes and then heard Joseph explain that he’d been visited by an angel who told him King Herod was sending soldiers to Bethlehem to kill all the young boys. They had no time to waste. Mary trusted Joseph and she knew they would discuss their options as they fled in the night. The life of little Jesus must be protected at all costs. Matthew describes this shocking, late night scene with these words: “…an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill Him.” (Matt. 2:13)
Egypt!? Did the angel say Egypt? I presume Mary rode a donkey while Joseph walked beside her. Perhaps Joseph had young Jesus riding on his shoulders and dads love to do with their little children. Or perhaps Joseph had by this time built a little cart for his carpenter business, his tools and materials, and perhaps a donkey was hitched to that cart while Mary and Joseph both walked. Regardless of how they traveled, they rushed I’m sure, in the dark of night for the road south from Bethlehem would have no lights, only the light of the moon.
I wonder which one of them, Joseph or Mary, might have said something like this: ‘Egypt? Why Egypt of all places? Doesn’t God know we’ll be refugees there, total strangers. We know no one there, we don’t know the Egyptian language, we have no Egyptian money. Where do we even begin looking for a place that will be safe for us? And how long will we be living as refugees in this place?” I wonder if Joseph might have said… “Mary, do you realize we are walking in the footsteps of our ancestor Jacob and his family? They too fled to Egypt in order to survive death, in their case the death of starvation. As God protected and guided them, do you believe God will protect and guide us?”
Perhaps it was during the day as they traveled and saw some pyramids and other great construction accomplishments of the slaves centuries before that they thought of Moses and his miraculous boyhood life in the palace in Egypt. Oh, what a contrast! A slave, Moses, raised as a prince in the Egyptian palace and the King of kings, Jesus, God in the flesh, leaving the glories of heaven to be born in a Bethlehem stable and then raised as a refugee in Egypt! Yet in both cases God was working HIS great plan and purpose for the benefit of the people of our world.
Now my friends, what do you suppose God is doing today, at this time in history, as God writes YOUR story? How do you and I fit into the grand story of God and what is God wanting to show us about His great story this Christmas? Here’s another song to help us contemplate these wonderful things my friends…
Today’s Scripture is Matthew 2:1-17.
Choose below to read or listen.
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Bible images provided with attribution to www.LumoProject.com.
Have a comment or question about today’s chapter? I’m ready to hear from you, contact me here.
Pastor Doug Anderson 262.441.8785
“Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, with our eyes fixed on Jesus…” (Heb. 12:1,2)
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