Have you ever considered the journeys of Mary and Joseph and how they resemble many of our journeys in life?  We all have unplanned, inconvenient journeys in our lives that we’d rather not take.   I’m sure you can think of times in your life that were hard and perhaps unexpected.  I can think of some of our unplanned, inconvenient, and scary life journeys.  One that comes to mind is Husband’s assignment to serve in Vietnam when he was nineteen before I ever knew him.  It was scary business, but while there he met a chaplain that changed his life.  Under that godly man’s influence, Husband came close to the Lord and committed himself to a life of service to others.  A practical result of that decision was that he applied to the same school that I was already attending although he had no idea he would meet his future wife there.  Who would have guessed that a year in a war zone far from home would turn his life in such a good (but not easy) direction?  

I think poor Mary most certainly wouldn’t have chosen to travel 9 or 10 days in her ninth month of pregnancy camping out each evening and traveling all day long each day.  Joseph would have done anything to spare her this suffering, but no one refused the Emperor’s orders.  They had been told to go to the ancestral home of each head of household to be counted in a census and they had to obey.  How worried and helpless he must have felt.  We don’t know if they knew then or later or ever that their weary journey was necessary to fulfill the prophecy that Messiah had to be born in Bethlehem.

Mary must have felt done in and disappointed when she turned from the inn door to the stable.  Surely God should have made better arrangements for the birth of the Messiah.  Joseph must have felt defeated when he couldn’t find suitable lodgings for his beloved wife in her condition and walked her to the stable with a lump in his throat. They couldn’t have known that this animal shed was the perfect place to display the humility of the Savior and his accessibility to everyone, no matter their station in life.  Or that for millennia the world would be wooed and comforted by this lowly scene.

I’ll never forget dear Husband at 31 years of age after 9 years of marriage taking my hand in the hospital parking lot and heading resolutely for the hospital entrance.  “I have loved walking with you these past years, but this is a walk I never wanted to take with you.”  He was scheduled for surgery to remove a kidney and repair the remaining one.  He wasn’t looking forward to the ordeal.  I will always remember his first words after coming out of anesthesia, “This is the day the Lord has made.  We will be glad and rejoice in it.”  It was a verse from Psalms.  (Psalm 118:24)  But amazingly, six weeks later we were on a plane for Asia where we would live for 10 years while he maintained small aircraft that made the lives of primitive people groups much better.  His surgery and recovery had been a training time like boot camp to toughen us for the rough road ahead as we adapted to a foreign country.  I, especially, would need this lesson of God’s faithfulness, and the example of Husband’s faith to see me through the first few months in this new country which were the last months of my pregnancy and the delivery of our fourth child. In this place nearly everything was strange to us.  The language, customs, food, shopping, daily routines, medical care, everything was different from anything I had experienced before.  And I needed the lesson of faith we learned just before leaving the U.S.

Forty days after the birth of Jesus, being devout, Mary and Joseph took the infant to the Temple in Jerusalem, a few hours’ walk from Bethlehem.  Here they gave the required sacrifice and dedicated him to the Lord as the Law required.  What should have been a routine ceremony turned out to be a memory Mary never forgot.  An old man prophesied over her and her infant.  His words were foreboding and as Mary traveled back to Bethlehem she must have mulled them over in her mind trying to grasp their meaning.  “This child is destined to cause many in Israel to fall, and many others to rise. He has been sent as a sign from God, but many will oppose him.  As a result, the deepest thoughts of many hearts will be revealed. And a sword will pierce your very soul”  (Simeon in Luke 2:34-35)  She took his words as a warning of rough roads ahead.  Apparently, not everyone would be as excited to receive her son as the shepherds and the two old people in the Temple had been.

Sometime later, probably before Jesus’ first birthday, they would have to make another journey they didn’t want to make.  They must have felt raw fear as they made their unplanned and hurried departure south to Egypt ahead of the soldiers’ arrival in Bethlehem with orders to kill all the toddler and infant boys.  Even after escaping the murderous scheme of their ruler, this trip itself had dangers of its own.  And what was awaiting them in the foreign country?  How would Joseph find work?  Where should they live?  How long would it be before they could return home?  They wouldn’t have known that all this upheaval was accomplishing yet another prophecy and was symbolic of their whole nation.  “When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son.”  Hosea 11:1.  And when they finally were told to return to their native country, danger awaited them in the form of the new ruler and they quickly changed their destination and route in order to avoid his jurisdiction making their journey even longer with young Jesus.  Yet, it too was a fulfillment of prophecy. “and he went and lived in a town called Nazareth. So was fulfilled what was said through the prophets, that he would be called a Nazarene.”  (Matthew 2:23)

  Usually, we don’t know the purpose and can’t see the good outcome when we’re going through hard times.  And sometimes we can’t ever see it.  That’s what faith is.  Believing what we can’t see.  We just keep trusting that our Lord is orchestrating each happy and hard thing to bring us to a better place as better, stronger people while he walks every weary step of the way with us.  And sometimes he even carries us when we can’t walk another step.  We aren’t on this journey of life alone.  This is good news as we enter the new year.

Happy New Year!

Short historical fiction of the escape to Egypt  here