Devotional: The Flight to Egypt

Matthew 2: 13-14 And when they were departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeareth to Joseph in a dream, saying, Arise, and take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, and be thou there until I bring thee 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 into Egypt:

After the birth of Jesus, some wise men came to Bethlehem seeking to bring gifts and worship the Christ-child.  Herod wanted nothing to do with this Child because he thought Jesus was heir to the throne.  So he wanted the wise men to return and tell him where he could find the Child so he could "worship" (do away with) him.  However, the wise men did not go back to Herod and God warned Joseph in a dream that he should take the Child and flee to Egypt.  

I did a Google search and found the distance between Bethlehem and Cairo, Egypt to be a walk of about 147 hours. It is roughly 448 miles. That is about the same distance between Denver, CO and Salina, KS, which is in the middle of Kansas.  This would be 1/7 of the trip my daughter and I will be taking beginning tomorrow, December 26, 2017.

The difference is that we are driving a car and it will take about 6 hours to drive that distance.  Mary and Joseph were either walking or riding donkeys.  It would have taken them 147 hours to walk that distance.  Google doesn't offer the option of tracking the time a donkey would take to walk it. I imagine the same.

I could not imagine traveling from coast to coast with a baby in a car, much less a 147-hour walk or donkey ride, which at an average of 6 hours a day would take almost 25 days, probably longer, because I'm not good at figuring these things out.  

This took a tremendous amount of faith, patience, and endurance.  Here I am wondering how I will manage a week-long ride in a comfortable car and soft beds in motels.  Mary and Joseph had almost a month of travel, a crying baby, and either blisters on their feet or sores on their rears from riding a donkey. Who knows what kind of sleeping accommodations and food they had?

This Christmas we have so much to be thankful for and we take so much for granted.  The best thing we have to be thankful for though is that Jesus came to save His people from their sin.