Finding the Path

A new crisis erupted shortly after the wise men left. They were warned in a dream not to return to Herod but to make the trip home by a different route (Matthew 2:12). Soon after, Joseph was again warned by an angel in a dream. The angel said, "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" (Matthew 2:13).

   Since the message came to Joseph, Mary now not only had to trust in God but had to trust also that God was leading in her life through her husband. Joseph didn't even wait for morning light. He roused Mary, and they quickly packed their belongings and left Bethlehem.

   The distance from Bethlehem to the border of Egypt was about two hundred miles through desolate, barren territory. Probably Joseph and Mary joined a caravan on its way to Egypt,

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since this was the best protection against robbers. Egypt, of course, was the ancient site of Israel's slavery, but since Herod's reign had begun forty years earlier Egypt had become a refuge for Jews fleeing from Herod's terror. Tradition says that the family journeyed to an area near present-day Cairo; in that area today believers can visit a church and a shrine to the holy family. The treasures given to them by the magi provided for their needs on the journey and during their stay in Egypt.

   All we know for certain about the trip Joseph and Mary made to Egypt is what is recorded in Matthew 2:14. We aren't told exactly where they lived or how long they stayed or even the route they took. Several apocryphal Christian writings composed in the centuries after the completion of the New Testament try to fill in the gaps with fanciful stories about the sojourn in Egypt. They give us some insight into how quickly legends about Jesus and Mary began to emerge within the Christian community.

   According to the Arabic Gospel of the Infancy, Joseph and Mary were attacked by two bandits on the road to Egypt, but the bandits found nothing to steal. Instead one the bandits took pity on them and gave them money; the other refused to help the poor couple. The legend goes on to say that the baby then predicted that both bandits would come in contact with him again in the future — more than thirty years in the future. They would be the two bandits crucified on either side of Jesus. The compassionate thief would repent and receive forgiveness from Jesus; the obstinate one would die condemned.¹

   Another legendary story comes from the Gospel of Pseudo-Matthew. Mary became hungry on the journey and looked with longing at the fruit of a date palm, hanging far above her. The infant Jesus smiled and commanded the palm to bend down so Mary could pick the dates.² We are told in another place in Pseudo-Matthew that when Mary, Joseph and the child reached

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their destination, Mary happened to carry Jesus into a pagan temple filled with idols. The idols all fell down before them and broke into pieces.³ Legends about the journey into Egypt abounded in the Middle Ages. Animals are said to have bowed down in worship; Jesus' bath water cured a leper; and an exasperated Jesus turned teasing boys into goats and back into boys again.

Persecuted for Christ's Sake

Joseph and Mary stand first in a long line of people persecuted for their relationship and loyalty to Jesus. It may surprise you to know that the century marked by the most oppression against Christians is not the first or second century, when thousands died in Roman arenas. More men and women and families have suffered and died for Christ in the twentieth century than in all other centuries combined, and the twenty-first doesn't promise much improvement. Christians in every part of the world have witnessed persecution and upheaval.

   The Boxer uprising in China set the tone for the twentieth century. In the year 1900, 135 missionaries and 53 children were killed by bare-chested supporters of the Chinese emperor. Hundreds of Chinese Christians lost their lives or went into hiding. But the church was not crushed. The courage of those martyrs spurred revival in the years that followed. By 1911 most political leaders in the Republic of China professed to be Christians. In Nazi Germany and Communist Russia, tens of thousands of Christians were imprisoned, tortured and killed. Africa exploded in the 1960s against any Western presence, including missionaries and African converts to Christianity. Even today Christian people in southern Sudan are under fierce attack from Muslims in the northern part of the country. Whole villages of people are slaughtered, and the children disappear into a slave market that thrives across northern Africa.⁴

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   I remember not many years ago saying goodbye to a young man leaving our church to return to Pakistan. He had come to the United States for his education and now was returning home to take a prominent place in government service. While in America, he had heard the gospel and believed on Jesus Christ as Savior and Lord. Now he had to go back to a land where conversion from Islam was punishable by death. I've often wondered what became of him.

   Those of us living in the United States or other democratic nations may yet see oppression or persecution. As our culture becomes more secular and more willing to compromise moral standards, the conscience-prodding voice of committed Christians will be less tolerated. We shouldn't be surprised by that trend. Jesus said that the world would hate us just like it hated him (John 15:18-19). What we can expect from an unbelieving world, cut loose from the moral constraints of biblical truth, is not acceptance or tolerance but tribulation (John 16:33).

Rachel Weeping for Her Children

Herod's reaction to the magi's failure to return to him with any information about the child was swift and brutal. He ordered his soldiers to slaughter all male children two years old and younger in the town of Bethlehem and in the rural areas around it. Some critics of the Bible have put a big question mark over the story of Herod's slaughter of the children. They believe that the brutality of the event makes it historically suspect, especially since there are no references to this incident in any sources outside the New Testament. The atrocity seems so horrible that it could not escape the notice of first-century writers.

   Several factors, however, need to be considered. First, in spite of the human suffering involved, this took place in a relatively insignificant area of Palestine, which was itself on the frontier of the empire, far removed from Rome. The world of New

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Testament Palestine was a world filled with brutality and acts of human cruelty. In comparison with other events this slaughter fades in significance. The town of Bethlehem was small. Estimates of the number of children killed by Herod's soldiers range as high as three hundred, but most scholars place the number at about twenty. Overshadowing all other factors was the cruelty of Herod the Great. He was infamous for his inhumanity. He ordered the murder of his own wife, Mariamne, and three of his sons. Several times in his reign he had ordered mass executions and crucifixions. He would not have hesitated for a moment to destroy a few young children if it would have rid him of a potential rival to his throne and power. Few ancient rulers could rival Herod for his savagery.

   Augustus, the Roman emperor, would probably not have interfered in this matter, since the Romans considered the Jews the most difficult of their subjects to rule. Furthermore, Augustus had given his permission for the murder of Herod's sons and had not been beyond using murder and massacre in his own rise to political power. As cruel and brutal as the story reads to us today, there is no reason to doubt its truthfulness. In fact, it confirms everything we know about Herod and his oppressive rule.

   Matthew, the only Gospel writer to relate the story of Herod's slaughter of the children, saw something beyond the bare facts of the king's rage and Joseph's dream. He saw God using the choices and actions of human beings to fulfill prophecies spoken hundreds of years earlier. In their original context, some of these prophecies had nothing directly to do with the coming Messiah. But as Matthew looked back at the Old Testament with Spirit-filled eyes, he saw the hints of these events glinting in the sand of the ancient records. God called Israel out of Egypt in the exodus under Moses, and now he calls his own Son from the same land (Matthew 2:15; Hosea 11:1).

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The sound of women's weeping that rose from the homes of Bethlehem after Herod's slaughter was the same lament ("Rachel's weeping") that arose six hundred years earlier in Ramah as Jews were rounded up there to be taken away into captivity in Babylon (Matthew 2:18, Jeremiah 31:15; 40:1).

The Tyrant Dies

Historians are able to pinpoint the date of Herod's death pretty accurately at 4 B.C. Jesus, obviously, was born several months before Herod's death. Most New Testament scholars date Jesus' birth at 6-5 B.C. It seems a little strange to have Jesus born "before Christ" (B.C.), but the problem came hundreds of years later when the Western calendar was converted from a Roman time frame to a Christian one.⁵

   When Herod died, the angel appeared again to Joseph just as he had promised and told him that it was safe to return to Jewish territory. Mary, Joseph and the baby again made the long journey across the northern Sinai to Judea. Their first plan, apparently, was to return to Bethlehem in Judea, but as they approached the border they heard some disturbing news.

   After Herod died, the Jewish people pleaded with the Roman emperor to return their land to religious rule under a Jewish governor. Herod had claimed to be Jewish in his faith, but he was an Edomite (or Idumean) by birth. Furthermore, his appointment as king of the Jews had wiped out the last remnants of Jewish self-rule that remained from the glorious days of the Maccabees more than a hundred years earlier. The emperor, however, decided to divide Herod's kingdom among Herod's sons.

   Judea, Samaria and Herod's homeland of Idumea were given to Archelaus. He possessed all of his father's bad traits and none of his father's abilities. Archelaus began his reign by slaughtering three thousand Jews in the temple who had decided to raise

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a rebellion against him. News like that prompted Joseph and Mary to make another change in direction. They decided to return to Nazareth in Galilee. Archelaus ruled only about ten years (until A.D. 6). Jewish protests became so vehement that he was deposed and replaced by Roman governors, the most notable of whom was Pontius Pilate, who ruled from A.D. 26 to 36.

   Another son, probably the most capable of Herod's boys, had been made tetrarch of Galilee and Perea. Herod Antipas ruled there forty years. He would foolishly order the execution of John the Baptist (Mark 6:17-28) and ridicule Jesus before his crucifixion (Luke 23:6-12), but overall he was the mildest of the Herodian rulers. Back in Nazareth, Joseph, Mary and Jesus again settled down to the quiet life of a small village.

Making It Personal

I'm struck as I read this account of the escape to Egypt that God did not miraculously deliver Joseph and Mary or even Jesus from harm or struggle or difficulty. Despite later legends of miraculous help for the family on the way to Egypt, Matthew gives us no indication of bending palm trees or generous bandits. Mary and Joseph had to run for their lives. The difficulty of travel with a young child was no different for them from what it was for any other couple back then, or today. The pictures flashed across our television screens of refugees on the run from war or massacre could very well reflect the fear and exhaustion and terror that filled the faces of Mary and Joseph. The birth in a stable and the flight to Egypt were just the first steps in the process for Jesus. Even as a baby he was learning maturity by the things he experienced (Hebrews 5:8-9). He was identifying with the trials of those he came to redeem.

   I don't know about you, but I find it difficult to trust God's leading sometimes, especially in times of upheaval or dramatic

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change. If I had been in Joseph's place, I might have stayed in Bethlehem a little longer just to pray about such a drastic move. I would have at least waited for daylight! Joseph and Mary, however, were willing to trust God even when they didn't see how everything would work out.

   Several years ago, at a time of pain and tremendous difficulty in our lives, we were left with no option, it seemed, except to move our family to our home town and into my parent's house. Since my parents were overseas for a year, their home was available, but it had only one bedroom, and we had two teenagers and a baby on the way. We had prayed for God's leading; we just couldn't believe he was leading us to this place at this time. I can still remember the sinking feeling in my heart and the gnawing confusion in my mind as we unloaded our clothes and moved into that tiny house. Many months passed before we could look back and see God's hand in this event. If you had asked us at the time if we were in God's will, we would have said, "We just don't know." But as we took one step at a time and held on to him through tears and confusion, we found ourselves led into whole new areas of ministry and relationships.

   Mary and Joseph learned through trial and testing to trust God. That's how we learn to trust him too. They had an angel's voice to guide them; we have someone far greater. We are led by the Spirit, God himself, who dwells within us as believers. Even in the darkest night, even through the most difficult transitions, we can be confident of his direction, wisdom and love.

Chapter 9  ||  Table of Contents