Jesus' Sojourn In Egypt

"Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His Mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him." 
When he arose, he took the young Child and His Mother by night and departed for Egypt, and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son"" (Matthew 2:13-15).

"But when Herod was dead, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt," (Matthew 2:19)

Nazareth was situated north, in Galilee, in the "hill country of Judea." Because Herod was hounding the newborn Child, the holy family had to flee from their village to a far away place. Egypt in the Bible was always a place of exile, idolatry, and degradation; to the family from Nazareth, it would no doubt have been the farthest journey they would have had to make from home; Egypt would have been the most foreign and outlandish country a first century Jew from Galilee would travel to.

Herod was mad for power. Like the Pharaoh "who did not know Joseph" in the Book of Exodus, who had also sought to destroy Moses, so was Herod after the same. Moses was saved by the reeds of the Nile river, and now that same Nile would prove itself to be the same safe conveyance for Jesus to a place of a very temporary refuge. The Nile had carried the two saviors to safety.

On the other hand, Egypt is sort of a symbol for the entire world. Egypt is a symbol of temporary residence, and change. Egypt, however corrupt, is still a fruitful and a well-watered oasis in the desert of madness. Whether God's people have escaped there as a result of a plague, or on account of a flight from a wicked Israelite king, or for refuge, Egypt in the Bible was always a sort of a spiritual recess, a desolate place to await the call of God with patience and endurance. God's people as "pilgrims and sojourners" would gaze longingly eastward to Jerusalem and intensely yearn to go back home.

Oftentimes, God communicates with His people through dreams and ecstatic visions. The place would light up with resplendent mystical light and the prophet would fall into a sort of an altered state of mind. For Joseph, God had used a dream to direct Him to a place of refuge from the bloodthirsty king. Joseph's was an angelic premonition. The message that was conveyed to him was "onward to Egypt!"

Joseph, therefore, "saddled his donkey and set her upon it" as the apocryphal legend phrases it, and came down to Egypt. There was a tradition that circulated in the ancient churches of Egypt that Joseph and Mary "came to the region of Hermopolis, and went into one of the Egyptian cities called Sotinen." The family must have tarried in Egypt for at least two years; they were afraid of Herod, and they were awaiting the vision of the angel.

Journey to Egypt had been a long night journey for the family. They became aliens in an alien land, exiled from their home, and all alone, with no one else to trust or turn to for support. For two years, what livelihood would Joseph have found for his family? The three must have taken up some lodgings and lived through it until things had quieted down.

Jesus and His family, like the Israelites of old, dwelt "as strangers in the land of Egypt, and with an uplifted arm He brought them out of it" (Acts 13:17). Egypt has always been that place where you just stay a while in order to grow to get out of it. Israel slaved for the Pharaohs for four hundred years, and God had sworn that He would one day deliver them. Now, Joseph and Mary, are awaiting the same promise of deliverance from Egypt, and settling back to Nazareth.

There is a mystical significance to Egypt. The Book of Revelation apocalyptically reveals the annihilation of wickedness of the earth: "And their dead bodies will lie in the street of the great city which mystically is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified" (Revelation 11:8). Sodom is a symbol of sensual depravity, and Egypt, slavery. The world is enslaved to the sins of permissive lewdness and all manner of idolatry.

The Coptic Christians often tell me that when the holy family arrived in Egypt, all the idols of the Egyptians toppled and the temples were lying in complete ruins. I think there is a ring of truth to that, seeing that the coming of Christ is the end of all human idolatry.

The Chosen Twelve

Jesus chose for Himself them that were well pleasing: the good whom His Father in Heaven has given Him. This is the story of the carriers of the Gospel. They were twelve in number to correspond to the twelve tribes of Israel.

“And He went up on the mountain and called to Him those He Himself wanted. And they came to Him. Then He appointed twelve (whom He also named apostles), that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach” (Mark 3:13-14).

Jesus chose those whom He simply wanted. He had determined them as fit to carry out His teachings to the farther parts of Judea. He had gone up to the mountain the same way as Moses had gone up to speak with God. The disciples were sent off from the mountain: hence they were apostles, the "sent out."

The mountain has always been a special place for Jesus: it is there that He delivered His Sermon on the Mount, it was on a mountain that He fed the vast multitudes, taught the people; He was also transfigured on a mountain, and delivered His Olivet Discourse. It was also a scene of His temptations. I could go on and on. The fact is that Jesus always stands atop a great mountain, dispensing His love and His divine powers on His saints for all times.

“I thank You Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that You have hidden these things from the wise and the prudent, and revealed them to babes. Even so, Father, for so it seemed good in Your sight” (Luke 10:21).

The scribes and the Pharisees have taken and hidden the key of knowledge. But what was once hidden, Jesus had made manifest; what was once buried, Jesus had uncovered. It was to them that the mysteries of the Kingdom of Heaven was given, whereas only in parables would Jesus speak to the crowds. Jesus chose them at the most unexpected of places: the beach or the toll booth. Jesus revealed to them knowledge; Jesus commissioned them to preach His Gospel; Jesus appeared to them alive after being buried in the tomb; Jesus breathes on them the Holy Spirit; and blesses them as He parts from them in His glorious ascension. 

“I have manifested Your name to the men whom You have given Me out of the world. They were Yours, You gave them to Me, and they have kept Your word” (John 17:6).

The disciples had been energized by the ecstatic effervescence of God's mystical presence on earth. They had gained knowledge and now they were shouting it from the rooftops. They were the ones who had gazed on the glory of the Son of Man at the Mount of Transfiguration. They have heard and seen things such as never been heard and seen from the creation of the world till now. How blessed and felicitous were the disciples of Christ!

The twelve disciples are as colossal and titanic as the astrological zodiacs in the night sky. Their glory and their immortality far exceeds the stars. They were the first to see and hear and touch and taste of the Word of Life. 

Cross of Christ

"But far be it from me to boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ" (Galatians 6:14).

The history of the human race begins and ends with the cross. That was the moment wherein the two polar opposites of life and death in the human mind were merged.

The vertical cross-beam (Patibulum in Latin) is the earth and all its desires. Jesus was forced to carry that wooden cross-beam on His shoulders on His way to Golgotha. He had carried the entire weight of the world on His back.

The upright stake, already in place, is our upward ascent to heaven - it is rooted in the ground and it extends skyward. Jesus was the one that had conjoined the vertical beam with the horizontal stake - the merging of the two distinct realms - the heavenly and the earthly.

The blood and water that had gushed out is our very life, issuing from our experiences as Christians. Jesus's cry of dereliction ("Eloi Eloi, Lama Sabachthani" Matthew 27:46) signifies the human condition of alienation and abandonment. And His cry of death is our cries of being born into this new world - our birth and our beginning.

His death is our life and His resurrection is our transcendence of our life in this world to the life of infinity. This is all we need to know about our salvation.

"For I determined not to know anything among you, except Jesus Christ and Him crucified" (1st Corinthians 2:2)

Jesus Crucified

"And they shall look upon Him whom they have pierced" (Zachariah 12:10).

A great crowd had once gathered round Mount Golgotha to look upon the crucified Lord, "from the distance" (Mark 15:40). Jesus had cried his last and had expelled His divine life-force. at that point, He was left to die alone, albeit in a morbid spectacle.

In the eyes of the Romans, He was merely a social deviant, suffering a fitting punishment for subverting the Roman hegemony. In the eyes of compatriots, He was an affront and an intolerable nuissance, because He had challenged the status-quo. In the eyes of His once loyal followers, He was an utter failure who had failed to inaugurate the Kingdom of God on earth.

But in the eyes of His true followers, His death was the beginning of a new life. In any case, whoever they were, and whatever they had seen, "every eye" has "seen" the crucified one (Revelation 1:7).

The event of the crucifixion was a universal event. The entire world from thence has already seen the crucified Son of Man. And we are continually in the process of seeing it.

The cross was a symbol of imperial brutality fabricated to instill shock in the hearts of the future dissidents of the empire. It was a sadistic artifice to deter any individual who dares to think to challenge the empire and its whole policy. It was the epitome of death and violence.

Jesus took that which was shameful and violent and transformed it into a life-giving symbol of our redemption, our freedom, and our eternal resting place. In death, there is life, in life there is death. In reality, there is no such thing as death...there is nothing but life!

This truth clearly shines from the despised cross...

The Three Holy Centurions

Roman centurion, 1st century A.D

We oftentimes overlook the fact that the first gentile Christians were the centurions. There were not just one, but quite a few who had come to the knowledge of Jesus, and they were among the earliest Christians after the Jews. But who exactly was a ‘centurion,’ and what exactly did they do? There are three main centurions that I would like to focus on in the New Testament that have paved the way of Christianity’s universal inclusion.

Firstly, the word ‘centurion’ derives from the Latin centurio, centurionis, meaning “head of a centuria,” a group of about 80-100 soldiers. He was the Roman army officer, sort of an equivalent to our captain (Gingrich Lexicon 3662). The Roman army was divided into what were called the “legions.” Each legion had about 4000-5000 infantrymen with around 300 cavalrymen. Each legion, in turn, was divided up into six centuria (i.e. centurions) of a hundred men each. Therefore, the centurion was the one who presided over the group of 100.

The Roman writer, Polybius says this about them: “The Romans wish the centurions to be not so much daring and adventurous in spirit but rather steadfast and persevering and with good leadership ability. They do not want men who will rush thoughtlessly into battle or who will initiate the fighting, but rather men who will hold their ground when outnumbered and hard pressed and who will die at their posts” (Polybius, History of the World, 6.22-24). 

The New Testament uses the Latin form centurion (kentyrion), as well as the more common Greek form, Hecatontarches, literally, “the ruler of a hundred.” The Latin version is only found in the Gospel of Mark: 15:39, 44, and 45. The former is found in twenty-two other places in the New Testament.

The First Holy Centurion:

While Jesus was teaching in the town of Capernaum, which is by the Sea of Galilee, a centurion had a servant dear to him who was sick. He was a respected man in the Jewish community, which is a surprise considering their brutal disposition that they were notorious for. This centurion appeared to be a “God-fearing” (theouphoboumenos in Greek) gentile who had donated a large money towards founding and building of a synagogue in the town. Even the Jewish elders besought Jesus to heal his servant for him, since he was well deserving and had treated the Jews with respect.

As Jesus was on His was to heal the centurion’s ailing servant, the centurion himself stopped Jesus on the way: “Domine, non sum dingus,” “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof…for I am a man also placed in authority, with soldiers under me, and I say to the one ‘go’ and he goes, and to the other ‘come’ and he comes, and to my servant ‘do this’ and he does it. Just say the word and my servant will be healed” (Luke 7:7-8). He did not need to see Jesus himself performing the miracle; it was enough for the centurion that Jesus say the word, so that he would believe that his servant was blessed. This act of faith by hearing and not seeing is that which astonished Jesus and of the type that would become the bedrock of all gentile believers coming after him.

The Second Holy Centurion:

When Jesus bowed His head and gave up His ghost after He had hung on that cross for good six hours, with an intervening three-hour solar eclipse, and the ensuing earthquakes, and other strange happenings, the centurion who stood by was in careful watch. He was the guardian of the crucified Lord. He was the one who stood closest to His cross where the other disciples had abandoned Him and His women followers were looking on from the distance. When the centurion saw all these things, and how He had died – how the spirit came out of Him and ascended into the sky – he was astonished and fearful. The centurion, perceiving through faith, that Jesus was more than a mere mortal who was subject to such shameful death. This knowledge brought him to his knees, declaring “Truly this Man was the Son of God” (Mark 15:39). 

The centurion, who was nearby guarding Jesus, was the first one to have seen Jesus actually die! He was the first witness of our Lord’s death. He was also later summoned to Pilate in order to ascertain if Jesus was dead; the centurion must have also granted the body of Jesus to Joseph, and had probably helped with getting Jesus off from His cross, and of removing the nail out of His body. He must have treated the body of the “Just Man” (Luke 23:47) with respect and reverence. He wouldn’t have thrown Jesus’s body off to the dogs to devour as were other ‘criminal scum.’

On the further note, there is also an ancient tradition dating back to around the first century about a certain centurion who was placed as a guard to the tomb of Jesus. He was conveniently called “Petronius” (Petra in Greek means ‘stone,’ an obvious playful reference to the tomb’s stone door). He was the one who had witnessed the earthquakes, the angelic visitations, and has even seen Jesus coming out of His tomb alive. Thus making the obscure centurion named Petronius as the first witness to Jesus’s resurrection. But that is a stuff of pious legends, stemming from obscure oral traditions.

The Third Holy Centurion:

The third guy is finally named: Cornelius. He was the centurion of what was called the “Italian Regiment,” which was stationed at Caesarea Philippi, then a Roman military capital of the province of Judea. He was a very pious man, no doubt himself a God-fearer (a special class of sympathizing gentiles known as the theouphoboumenoi, God-fearers). He prayed daily along with his household, gave alms, worshipped the God of Abraham, and supported the local synagogues. 

Then suddenly, during one of his meditations, “About the ninth hour of the day he saw clearly in a vision an angel of God coming in and saying to him, "Cornelius!"” (Act 10:3). Not only was Cornelius granted the heavenly vision but that God even sent a vision to the apostle Peter. When Peter had proclaimed the Gospel to centurion with his family, the Holy Spirit fell upon them as it had to the Jews. This was when Peter had learned that God had for the first time broken the barriers that had separated Jews from the gentiles. This is the event that mark a new and revolutionary era of faith. How blessed was that soldier of Christ indeed!

There are many other centurions to tell of, even the bad one that had Paul whipped by accident. But I can’t simply get into all of them here. The above examples are enough to edify the faith. Remember, it is always the minor characters of the Bible that play the most curial and pivotal roles. Other examples of people who were least esteemed by their society: women, children, the tax collectors, prostitutes, sinners, and drunkards.

We must take after the centurions as prime examples of our faith. Paul himself had seen what centurions could really teach us about faith. He took what was once a formidable Roman weapon and turned it into a weapon of Christ: “put on the whole armor (Latin, armatura) of God…stand therefore, having girded your waist with truth, having put on the breastplate (Latin, lorica) of righteousness, having shod your feet (Latin Caligae) with the preparation of the gospel of peace; and above all, taking the shield (Latin, scutum) of faith with which you will be able to quench all the fiery darts of the wicked one. And take the helmet (Latin, galea) of salvation, and the sword (Latin, gladius) of the Spirit, which is the word of God” (Ephesians 6:11-18). Every centurion’s item is listed as articles of faith and are used as strong spiritual metaphors. The scutum, galea, and gladius were all centurion’s weapons, and they are powerful weapons of faith indeed! 

Jesus's Power of Touch

Everything Jesus touches is made whole. The woman who had a flow of blood for twelve years was healed by so much as taking hold of the “hem of His garment” (Mark 5:28). When Jesus traveled through the land of Gennesaret, the people of the village “brought to Him all who were sick, and begged Him that they mightonly touch the hem of His garment,” and as many as had grabbed hold of it were completely healed (Matthew 14:34-36).

Jesus had felt in His body that “power had gone out of Him” (Mark 5:30); even the fringes of His robes were energized by the healing power of the Holy Spirit. Everything that touched Jesus became powered by the divinity that was embodied in Him. Everyone who knew of Jesus recognized that power, so “little children were brought to Him that He might put His hands on them and pray” and Jesus blessed the little children by laying His hands on them (Matthew 19:13-15). Jesus’s power was universal loving-kindness – that that no matter where it goes it heals, it makes whole, and blesses it.

Jesus had bestowed that power to His disciples before He ascended: He breathed His life-giving breath on them, and that was the transmission of the Holy Spirit (John 20:22). The bed-ridden were made well when the shadow fell on them as Peter was passing by (Acts 5:15). Jesus had even blessed the apostle Paul and had given him of His power to work miracles: “Now God worked unusual miracles by the hands of Paul, so that even handkerchiefs or aprons were brought from his body to the sick, and the diseases left them and the evil spirits went out of them” (Acts 19:11-12).

None of these objects were “holy relics” per se. These were ordinary, mundane, everyday objects that were energized because of the power and love that had exuded from Jesus. Jesus’s power was so real, that it manifested itself through His clothes; His love was so powerful, that it spread to everything that came into so much as physical contact with Him. That power spread from person to person, from object to object because that powerful energy resonated within Jesus, and flowed out of Him in a very real way. It was the power of the Christ that was real and had resided around Jesus in a very concrete way.