There is no day quite as depressing as the day after Christmas. Christians eveywhere feel the pang of having to put away their decorations. Many put off taking down the lights, garland, and other decorations tell after New Year's. But there is no question that on December 26th, the heart and soul of the holiday sinks. Still there is much to celebrate past Christmas. For one, Jesus Christ's birth does not end in Bethelhem. No, our Savior had to make an Exodus to Eygpt. The night following the Nativity Scene, Joseph had another dream where an angel told Him to take the child and his wife Mary to Eygpt. Little did Joseph know, King Herod The Great had ordered his soldiers to lay siege to Bethelehem and kill every newborn child under two (sound familiar? Think Moses).
God at the very beginning was being threatened with execution. This should make people think about today's age of abortion. What if Mary was as selfish as the mothers today and decided to abort Jesus?! Do not take my words as disrepect towards The Virgin Mother. She was not like the women of today, who think often only about themselves. Mary rather than thinking about the troubles a newborn will bring on her social life, said to the angel, "I am the Lord's servant. Let it be done unto me according to his Word." (Luke 1:38). Her words echo through history and have had ramifications we still are trying to fathom.
Christ spent eight years of his life in Egypt. Years that we do not have access to. What we can speculate is that he mingled with Eygptian children. Which is not something we think much about. The Lord was amongst the sons of Ishmael for eight years! He made his home among the pyrimads. This all was of course was to fulfill prophecy.For everything in the Old Testament forshadows the New Testament. Moses was foshadowing of Christ. As young child he was born away from his people and lived among Eygptians. Then like Moses and the Israelies, He made His Exodus back to the Holy Land.
The truth is that we can continue to celebrate Christ's brith or Christmas far into the New Year. While battling the blues of the holiday being over; remembering that the Lord's journey did not end in a manger. He went forth to Eygpt. While you ponder taking down the decorations or wallow in the deflated feelings of the day after Christmas ponder the following passage:
"an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "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. So he got up. took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fuifilled what the Lord had said through the Prophet Elijah, "Out of Egypt I called my Son."
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulffilled, A voice is heard Raman, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comofrted, because they are no more." (Matthew 2:13-18).
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