The angel in The Gospel According to St. Luke explains it this way: “To you is born this day in the City of David, a savior who is Christ the Lord.” Jesus comes to save us. One way we can understand that saving transaction is to say that Jesus comes to take our place. He comes to trade places. He comes to trade identities and to trade futures. We could also say that he comes to trade parents and children and relationships and health and circumstances and resources and preferments, yes, and even investments. He trades his royal robes for swaddling bands. He takes our place and offers us His.
He begins in poverty in a stable, in homelessness in Bethlehem and in exile in Egypt. He takes on our flesh and our struggle. He takes on our infirmities and our death, that we might be whole and freed. He offers us his place, His Father, His Spirit, His life, His future.
[blockquote] He begins in poverty in a stable, in homelessness in Bethlehem and in exile in Egypt. [/blockquote]
Well, as we have pointed out with others this is not exactly true. Joseph had a trade and the homelessness was temporary caused by the tax census. However he was exiled to Egypt.
Theirs was a kind of homelessness, they were not free, their homeland had been conquered and was occupied by enemy forces (as has God’s Creation) who told them where and when to come and go and they were forced to flee from Pharoah.
A kind of homelessness, seeking refuge in Christ from the enemy (‘The Son of Man has nowhere to lay His head’, ‘we seek a better country’, ‘we have a house not made with hands’) comes to us when we enter the Kingdom of Heaven and take up our crosses to follow Christ.
Joseph being warned by an Angel of the Lord that Herod sought the life of baby Jesus fled Bethlehem to the land of Egypt and did not return to Nazareth till about 2 years later. The three kings that set gifts before the Christ Child gave them to a young boy-child.
The interesting thing about the Holy family living in Egypt is that they lived in a number of Eyptian villages (not all of them at once – of course). This was pointed out to me by family members who lived and worked in Egypt for about 10 years. More than one Egyptian village claimed that the Holy family lived in a dwelling within their village. Joseph, Mary and Jesus had to keep moving because Herod’s co-horts were hot on their trail. When Joseph heard that Herod was dead he and his family returned to his homeland and dwelled in Nazareth.