What Can a Baby Teach Us (Part 1 of 3)

(Matthew 2: 13 -15)

When a couple has their first child there usually aware that they have a lot to learn, and there probably aware that they themselves also have a lot of teaching to do. They’ve going to have to teach this little person a great deal between now and the time they leave home. But the quicker you start the better because most of the teaching has to be done in the early years, you have to be very quick out of the block when it comes bringing up a baby.

I once asked a young couple, what is the first word you are going to teach this child? She said mummy, and then he piped up and said, no, daddy, and so it goes. No that was not really a serious conversation, and their replies were meant to be humorous, but what every couple should know it that there are two ways to two ways to teach a child, either you teach the child, or the child teaches you.

Have you ever thought about the fact than when it comes to Jesus Christ, we are introduced to him first as an infant. Most people are familiar with the Christmas story, he was born in Bethlehem. We know about the shepherds and the wise men who came to visit. We can learn a lot from those stories surrounding the infant Jesus, but that’s only the beginning. This baby Jesus situation has a lot to teach us, but it is much more than just a sweet little Christmas story this baby Jesus stuff can teach us a lot of important stuff of a spiritual nature? You see, things happen to him, circumstances concerning him, the events around him when he was an infant that are just loaded with spiritual truths. 

I want us to look at the life of Christ, when he was an infant, and look beyond the shepherds, beyond the wise men, to what happened to him next?  And ask what the value of these events are to us today? What do these, what are these episodes in the life of the infant or maybe young child Jesus teach us that spiritual of spiritual importance? Un-usually this time I am boing to begin by readding the whole passage we are going to be covering over the next few days, and then return to it again verse by verse in more detail.

13 When they had gone, 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.” 14 So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, 15 where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.” 

16 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. 17 Then what was said through the prophet Jeremiah was fulfilled:

18 “A voice is heard in Ramah,
     weeping and great mourning,
 Rachel weeping for her children
     and refusing to be comforted,
    because they are no more.” 

19 After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt 20 and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” 21 So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was reigning in Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. Having been warned in a dream, he withdrew to the district of Galilee.

23 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.

Well, if you look at this passage carefully you will notice this passage is broken up into three parts by the fact that Matthew keeps saying and this happened so that the prophetic scripture might be fulfilled. Three times he interrupts the passage with these punctuation points. 

Verses 15, 17 and verse 23. So, Matthew was obviously making a point that these various things that have happened to Jesus are somehow a fulfilling prophetic statements that were made in the Old Testament about him. Going a step further, if you analyse these three sections components, you will discover that there are three distinct spiritual truths being taught here. All drawn out from these three quotations from the Old Testament. So, I’m going to tell the story again, only this time we’re not approaching it from a Christmas perspective but in the context and the perspective with which Matthew wrote is and we are going to focus on what this baby teaches us, or at least what the events surrounding him can teaches us.

The first thing I’m going to suggest is that God loves his children. I am sure some of you are thinking having just read that story. How do you get that out of this story? How do you see the word love in this passage? Let’s start at the beginning and I’ll show you. Let’s start again in verse 13.

When they had gone, 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.”

(Matthew 2: 13)

Very simply, the angel says, get out of town. Now if you heard the previous message to this, you will be aware that Herod told the Wise Men to go find him and then come back and tell him where the baby was so that he could “go worship him”. Don’t fall for that one for a second. But now the angel appears to Joseph says don’t buy that deception for a minute, Herod doesn’t want to worship Jesus, he wants to destroy him. So, get out of town and go to Egypt.  The Wise Men sought to worship him, but Herod sought to destroy him. The next verse tells us that Joseph was immediately obedient, he was taking his family and running for his life, 

So, he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt,

(Matthew 2: 14)

It was so urgent that they left in the middle of the night. They flee to Egypt in the middle of the night a journey that was at the very least 60  60 miles. 60 miles away, but it’s a world away as far as the jurisdiction of Herod is concerned, and that’s what is important. We have no idea how long they stayed there. What we do know is that what happened next.

“Where he stayed until the death of Herod. And so was fulfilled what the Lord had said through the prophet: “Out of Egypt I called my son.

(Matthew 2: 15)

We know from sources outside the Bible that Herod died during Passover when there was an eclipse of the moon. We also know some other things that when put alongside the writing of someone called Josephus, then by piecing things together, we can calculate that based on our current calendar, that Herod died somewhere around 4 B.C. 

Matthew then says that it happened so that what was spoken by the Lord through the Prophet, might be fulfilled. Joseph by taking Jesus into Egypt, Matthew says fulfilled this prophecy in the Old Testament. Now as you know I like to  take the Bible at face value, I take it, that what it says, it means, but sometimes figurative language is used. Most of the time you just take the Bible plainly for what it says, but, if you go back to where this quotation is, which happens to be Hosea, Chapter 11, 1, Now within the context of the book of Hosea you will discover that when God said, “out of Egypt, I called my son”, he was talking about the nation of Israel. So, how can you say that Jesus going to Egypt is a fulfilment of God saying he took Israel out of Egypt? How do we connect those two things together?

Let me see if I can explain this. As we study through the book of Matthew, when we see a statement that is predictive in nature, and  it can talk about it being filled or fulfilled. When the Bible uses the word fulfil, it isn’t always talking about a prophetic statement, it is sometimes talking about a prophetic type. That’s a keyword, is, it is a type, this method of prophecy is called typology. So, what is a type?  A type is a God intended pattern, a repeated illustration, Let me illustrate. In the Old Testament, God said to Israel, I want you to take a lamb down to the Tabernacle and sacrifice it. This is as a picture, an illustration of the covering and atoning of sin. That is a a God intended illustration of the fact that one day there would be a sacrificial death to atone for all sin. So, we could say that Jesus fulfilled the typology of the sacrificial lamb.  In the Old Testament God called Israel his son and throughout he referred to the Messiah as his son. In the like of the psalms (Ps 2) and  other places. Matthew here is looking at the Old Testament says, look at this, look at what happened to Israel as a nation, well that is what happens to the Messiah, Jesus, Gods son. He too will go down to Egypt and then he too will be called out of Egypt.  So, it’s a type, Israel going to Egypt is a type of Jesus going to Egypt and it fulfils that type that God intended. Illustration.  

Now, one more little point, Matthew chapter 2 says he went to Egypt to fulfil that prophecy. So, what’s the parallel, why did the original Israel (Jacob and his family) go to Egypt in the first place, it was to be delivered from famine? Then, why did they come out of Egypt to be delivered from slavery? So, this whole concept of going in and out of Egypt is God’s manifestation of his care, that he’s taking care of his nation, and his son, on this occasion protecting his position as the Messiah.  God is delivering his children from danger, from famine from slavery or even hatred. .Or this occasion it is the hatred of Herod. Now it gets a little more interesting. I’m going to refer you to some scholars that have studied New Testament quotations of the Old Testament and have pointed out that when a New Testament writer is quoting the Old Testament, he is often thinking of that verse in its context and not just the words that appear in the New Testament. So exactly what did? Hosea 11 one says and that’s where the plot thickens.  Hosea 11: 1 says. I quote 

When Israel was a child, then I loved him, and called my son out of Egypt.

(Hosea 11: 1 K.J.V.)

This calling of the nation of Israel out of Egypt was because God loved the nation of Israel, like he loved a son. That’s how I conclude the first portion of this passage is teaching us that God loves us. He sent his son to Egypt because he loved him and didn’t want him killed by Herod, so regardless of the evil intentions in the background of the story we can still see that God loves and protects his children.  I believe is what this first section is teaching us, God loves us. That’s what the  story of the flight of the baby Jesus into Egypt can teach us about God. But not just this baby, can teach us this any babies, any baby teach us about love.

Before I became a father for the 1st time nearly 30 years ago, I never understood the intensity of love you could have for another human being. I know when they cry in the middle of the night, they sometimes can irritate you, but isn’t just the whole issue of a baby about love?  That’s the amazing thing about a baby, I loved my wife with all my heart, and before my first born arrived I wondered how I could love even more, but when my son arrived my love just expand to fill the new space the new baby occupied. And when my daughter arrived 2 years later, I experienced that again. I remember my mother said to me when babies arrive, they bring a whole new extra portion of love into your life, and that is indeed, just what I experienced. That’s what the baby teaches us, and Matthew goes out of his way to say that here in the case of Jesus Christ fleeing down to Egypt and that happened because God loved him and wanted to protect him. There is no greater truth that I could teach you than God loves you. I believe that is one of the greatest truths in all of the Bible. I believe it is also one of the deepest needs of the human heart.  We all need to know that God absolutely loves you.

It is often said that Romans is the deepest book in the Bible and Ephesians is the highest heights in the Bible. In the Book of Romans we plunge the deepest depths of spiritual meaning and in the book of Ephesians, we’re in the heavens. If you take the book of Roams and you read it and you hit chapter 8, where it says “nothing can separate us from the love of God in Christ”.  You can also climb the highest peak in the Book of Ephesians and when you get to chapter three it says, “oh, that you could understand the height, the wet, the breath, the depth of the love of God”. It’s all about the love of God. If there is one truth. I would think that you need to know above every other. It’s that God loves you, and He demonstrated that by sending his son, Jesus Christ to die for you and set you free from the penalty, power and presence of sin. There’s a lot that goes on that makes us doubt that transaction. It’s a cruel world out there and sometimes when the hatred and cruelty of that world is hurled at us, we can forget that. Sometimes things don’t go exactly like you think they ought to go, or that you expected them to go and it’s in those dark moments when things don’t work out, that we you begin to ask ourselves, how is it that God can love me and let these thing happen?

Well, the answer to that is found in the rest of this story, and we will continue and finish this passage next time.