Get up. Go!

Get up. Go! Matthew 2.13-15

Joseph had such tremendous responsibility as the protector of the Savior baby and his beloved wife, Mary, mother of Jesus. Once again, God speaks to Joseph in a dream about the parenting of the Most High.

“After the wise men were gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother,” the angel said. “Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is going to search for the child to kill him.”

That night Joseph left for Egypt with the child and Mary, his mother, and they stayed there until Herod’s death. This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: “I called my Son out of Egypt.”

And he did as God had bid. Just how God-trusting or faith-filled Joseph had been before he had been selected to be the Messiah’s earthly father, we can only assume; but once he knew he was to be ‘that man,’ his faith seemed to know no bounds. How do I make such a claim?

When an individual is living by faith in God, he trusts God,

he trusts in what he believes God is leading him to do,

and he is obedient.

Go to Egypt, God told him. Hmmm … when I think of safety for a little Jewish family, I guess I do not think of Egypt, but that is because of what I know about it today. Modern-day Egypt is predominantly Muslim (90+ percent-mostly Sunni), hostile to Judaism. Today, Jews in Egypt number fewer than 200.1 However, Egypt was once home to one of the oldest Jewish communities in the world. In the first century, Egypt was actually considered a refuge, a place to be safe from the tyranny of Rome, and in this case, the threat of Herod.

More than 700 years earlier, Hosea, the prophet, declared that God would call his son out of Egypt; evidently, this journey had been part of God’s plan.2 And so the little family departs Bethlehem, and heads toward Egypt, some 400 miles away. Undoubtedly they took the regular caravan route south from Bethlehem to Hebron (modern Road 60), then turned sharply northwest to Gaza. From Gaza they would have followed the coastal highway down to Pelusium, the gateway to Egypt. Traveling an average of twenty miles a day, they would have reached Egypt in about ten days. (An alternate route, through the Negev and the Sinai Desert, an area of never-ending wilderness and heat, would have been extremely dangerous).3 No doubt, they travelled with other folks, and then became part of little Jewish community in Egypt .

The gifts the magi brought now take on a whole new meaning—their value would sustain Joseph and Mary while in Egypt. O, God is always right on time. You know, the gospels also tell us Jesus was right on time, though sometimes not the timetable others thought he should be observing.4 God’s ways are not our ways, to be sure, but they are far better. For just as the heavens are higher than the earth,so my ways are higher than your waysand my thoughts higher than your thoughts.5

Planning is good and right. But for those of us who live and die by executing our plans with exactitude, we do well to remember what the half-brother of our Lord wrote: “Come now, you who say, “Today or tomorrow we will go to such and such a city, and spend a year there and engage in business and make a profit.” Yet you do not know what your life will be like tomorrow. You are just a vapor that appears for a little while and then vanishes away. Instead, you ought to say, “If the Lord wills, we will live and also do this or that.” But as it is, you boast in your arrogance; all such boasting is evil.”6

There are times in life when tragedy strikes, oft times unexpectedly … ‘What then, Christine? When it hit you, how did you handle it?’ Can I be honest? Almost always, I first try to think if there is any way I can fix it, or any way I can get out of it, and sometimes I fret … AND THEN, I remember, that God is good, and he has a plan—and it is one I can trust. I know that trials, even tragedies, are part of living; Christians are anything but exempt! There was Job, who modeled right response with, ‘The Lord gives and the Lord takes away. Blessed be the name of the Lord.’7 And then I remember Paul’s encouragement: “And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose.”8

So if you hear God say, ‘Get up and go,’ do it. He has a plan, and you can trust it.

Christine

1 – The figure of 200 Jews – just pick the source—seems certain: Wikipedia, City Light Tours; however, The Economist, April 17, 2013, sites only about 100: http://www.economist.com/blo…/pomegranate/2013/…/egypts-jews

2 – Hosea 11.1

3 - Welcome to Hosanna.com – “Flight to Egypt”; a great visit to the article on this website, has good information and terrific photographs

4 – Can you think of times in Jesus’ ministry when, according to others, Jesus was late? If you do not know, you can ‘google’ the matter!

5 – Isaiah 55.9

6 – James 4.13-16, NASB; now from The Message: https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/…

**What’s your response to this notion?

7 – Job 1.21, from memory – love it

8 – Romans 8.28 - **for whom do all things work together for good?