Mercy mild
I wonder if it felt familiar somehow.
Just days ago, perhaps a week or twelve days to be exact, we read in Luke’s gospel how Mary and Joseph had to leave Nazareth for Bethlehem.
They needed to head south on dirt roads and rocky paths to reach Joseph’s hometown in David’s city.
King David, from whom David was descended.
Mary was pregnant then, and those rough roads took a toll on her.
On her body.
Her aching feet.
Her aching heart wanting to be home.
When they arrived in Bethlehem, Mary must have been exhausted.
Very soon she would give birth to the Christ child and since it was very soon, I imagine nothing was comfortable.
Added to that was the difficulty in finding a place to stay.
Added to that was her being in a strange land with strangers, some of whom were family.
Still, the time came and she gave birth to this miracle child.
And as we read in Luke’s gospel on Christmas Eve, she glowed with bride and her heart swelled with love as the shepherds told her all that the angels had said about the baby.
This child born there in Bethlehem was the Christ child, the Messiah, our savior.
And upon hearing this, Mary’s love for the child, well, didn’t grow, necessarily.
I imagine she loved him as fully as a person could love their child.
Still, she treasured the shepherd’s words and she pondered them in her heart.
And then the Magi visited the child too, but no spoilers.
We’ll hear more about that tomorrow’s Feast of the Epiphany.
Yet now, a different angel appeared.
Matthew’s gospel tells us an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph and told them they must flee to Egypt.
All of them, Mary, Joseph, and the child must leave for Egypt immediately.
And so, I wonder if this was all so familiar to Mary.
No longer pregnant, but now carrying a child on her hip, Mary and Joseph needed to head out on the road again because Herod was threatening to harm the child.
So, once again, Mary had to pack her things and child’s things and help Joseph get his things together and they left.
And, having just given birth, Mary was uncomfortable on the unpaved roads of ancient Israel and Egypt.
And they then arrived in Egypt and settled in as best they could.
Where they had arrived in Bethlehem as strangers, at least Joseph had family there.
Here, they were both strangers in a strange land.
They were left to fend for themselves until they could get settled.
Perhaps Joseph set up a carpentry shop.
Perhaps they joined up with the Jewish diaspora and missed home together.
Cooked meals for each other.
Danced together when one or two of their group was married.
Held Friendsgivings instead of Thanksgivings and so on.
I wonder if Egypt became familiar to Mary a life as a young mother and perhaps a young wife in a land where the future was uncertain but tolerable as long as she had Jesus.
As long as she had those bits and hints of comfort that reminded her of home.
Did she walk the streets to the market without thinking about directions and how to get there.
Did she stroll through familiar winding paths between low slung houses ducking from the heat?
Did she and Joseph have a favorite place to get away to?
A place to perhaps sip tea and talk while their child was taken care of by friends or distant relatives?
Was Egypt, if only for a little while, home?
And then, I still wonder.
Was the call to leave Egypt all so very familiar?
In Luke’s gospel, she had left Nazareth.
She had left Bethlehem.
She would now need to leave for Israel once more and head to Nazareth from where Matthew says the prophets wrote the Messiah would be a Nazorean.
So she packed up her things once more and placed her baby on her hip once more and she and Joseph walked from Egypt through Sinai and past Jerusalem.
They headed to Galilee which was once a part of the northern kingdom of Israel but long ago invaded by the Assyrians.
Galilee was known as Galilee of the Gentiles following that invasion because so many foreigners lived in that land.
Once in Galilee, the family ended up in Nazareth.
Was she home?
Did Mary feel settled?
Was her heart still made warm when she thought of the words the shepherds said?
Did she still feel God’s favor as she did when she met with Elizabeth?
Did her new home remind her of her old home in Egypt, of her sojourn in Bethlehem?
The angel told the family to leave Egypt and head for Israel and so they did.
They passed by Jerusalem, the very seat of power in the land, the seat of Roman rule and the temple.
They passed by the city of David, Joseph’s ancestral home and the birthplace of one of Israel’s greatest kings.
They passed by the seats of power and landed in a small backwater town in a land filled with gentiles.
A humble town.
A humble place.
A city perfect for a child born in a manger and wrapped in swaddling clothes.
This messiah, Mary’s son, would start his ministry in this place very much not suited for the greatest kings of Israel or the greatest emperors of Rome.
This king would draw his power from the rivers people who would follow him, his miracles from the very God he was.
Christ, though born of noble roots, though born of the line of David, grew up humble but never meek.
And I wonder if Mary thought these things as she placed her things in the right places in her new home.
The child, her child was born in Bethlehem, the city of David.
David though, the great king who united Israel for the first time in a long time, was also born of the root of Jesse as it were.
He was but a boy, a shepherd when Samuel anointed him to be the future king.
David was a shepherd like those who brought Mary such joy on the night of her son’s birth.
And when she was in Egypt, did Mary think of Moses?
Moses, born a slave in Egypt escaped death by having been taken in by the Pharoah’s wife.
Moses would then grow up amongst the powerful until he left the royal household and led his people to freedom.
Jesus’s roots were humble before they were great.
And now, he was with his people.
Placed in a crib or in a bed by his mother, he slept as the vulnerable sometimes do, protected by those who loved him.
Mary knew how to do that.
She knew how to love her child.
She knew how to protect her child.
Her child who would astound so many at the Temple.
Who would feed so many and heal so many.
He did that because as a child his mother and earthly father raced against Herod’s might and evil decrees to save him when he was most vulnerable.
When evil was searching for him, Jesus’ parents fled to Egypt because an angel told them to do so.
And because they loved him, they fled.
From a floating basinet, Moses was plucked from the Nile and led his people to freedom.
From being a shepherd, David was made King of Israel.
As a refugee from violence, Jesus grew into the Messiah we recognize today.
All born of certain circumstances with certain challenges, God gave them all to us to lead us to better lives, better ways of being.
In those challenges, we can read into the stories our own lives and our own hiccups and know that God chooses for us better lives and better ways of being.
We can also read in these stories, stories of God breaking through and leading us, over and over again, into God’s loving embrace.
We can change those things that need changing in our own lives and know also that when we are at our most vulnerable, when our wits are at their thinnest, we are protected by God when we sleep and when we wake.
And just as Mary moved her baby from far and near just to protect her child, we can do the same.
We can act as Pharoah’s wife did and protect those in harms way.
We can raise up the lowly as Samuel did with David.
We can remove the endangered from danger and always, always share God’s protection as God protects us.
Love those in danger as if they were our own and love them always as God loves us.
Mary knew to do that.
While motherhood may have been an unfamiliar role for her, while being in foreign lands and different cities might have felt unfamiliar, what seemed familiar, innate almost, was her understanding of God in her life.
Do you know where God is in your life, rather, do you know that God is in your life?
And, I wonder, does that feel familiar?
Amen.
