Basically, I grew up in upstate New York. There were some woods at the end of the street and there was a pond more or less in the middle of it. In the winter, we would skate on it and play hockey.
The thing is ... as we gathered on the edge of the pond, we always had the same debate: Was the ice thick enough? We would argue ... debate. Some would say "yes, it 'looked' thick enough to hold us." Others would say, "no way, it's not thick enough."
There was only one way to tell ... step out onto the ice ... and listen. If we didn't hear the ice crack or the guinea pig, I mean, tester, didn't fall through ... then another brave person would step out onto the ice ... and then another ... and if the ice were thick enough, it would hold all of us and soon we'd be skating or playing hockey or just skating and having a good time, not thinking about the ice at all. We didn't have to because the ice h ad proven that it could hold us up.
Joseph (of Nazareth) stepped out on what appeared to be very thin ice the moment that he obeyed God and took Mary to be his wife instead of "quietly" divorcing her. He had no idea what would happen. Well ... he had some ideas ... none of them good. But he took a chance and acted on blind faith.
Well ... his faith wasn't completely "blind." Matthew described him as a righteous man who believe in and trusted God. If God told him to marry Mary, then God would be with him and would give him the strength or whatever he needed to accomplish God's will. But still ... the "ice," so to speak, looked pretty thin. But as he inched out in his faith, his faith and his confidence in God grew and became stronger. Or ... like when we played pond hockey ... his faith became second nature ... his faith in God no longer blind but solid, secure.
As we are going to see, God has incredibly poetic nature. I don't know if you've ever noticed that. In a dream ... a vision ... God told Joseph to get up and take Mary and Baby ... or Toddler ... Jesus to Egypt. Why is God sending them to Egypt beautiful? Poetic? I'm sure that it was neither beautiful nor poetic in Joseph's mind at the time ... and probably not Mary's either.
God tells Joseph ... just like He told Abraham ... to leave his family and friends and travel to a land that he had never seen before ... to start out building a life for his wife and child ... find a job ... a home ... and I'm sure that he was wondering: "Why Egypt?" But he wouldn't know .... and I doubt that he ever figured out "why Egypt." But he stepped out in faith and before he even took one step in the direction of Egypt, God had provided for him and his family. Some Magi ... non-Jews from far, far away ... came to Joseph and Mary to see this child declared by the stars and gave them valuable gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Enough ... maybe even more than enough ...to sustain them while they lived in Egypt.
And, as if going to Egypt wasn't scary and challenging enough, staying in Judea was even more dangerous. After the Magi left, Herod ... who had been tipped off by the Magi that a new king has been born ... ordered that all male children who were two years old or younger were to be slaughtered. Jesus would have been one of the infants executed by Herod's soldiers. And ... while Jesus will eventually be killed ... the time and the place of Jesus' death had already been determined for God's purposes ... namely, the salvation of mankind for its sins and the restoration of our broken relationship with God ... and not for Herod's selfish or ambitious purposes, which was to protect his position and power for himself and for his sons or heirs.
All of this had been seen and prepared for by God hundreds of years before Joseph or Mary or Herod had ever been born. Matthew says that Joseph remained in Egypt until Herod had died and an angel told him that it was safe to return home. "This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the LORD through the prophet [Hosea], 'Out of Egypt I have called my son'" (Matthew 2:15).
God knew about Herod's attempt to kill Jesus by killing all the boys of Judea who were two years old or younger: "Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah: 'A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation. Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more'" (Matthew 2:17-18).
When Joseph obeyed the LORD and returned to his hometown of Nazareth, he fulfilled yet another prophesy made by God: "There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled ... 'He will be called a Nazorean'" (Matthew 2:23).
Beginning to see the beauty and poetry yet? Oh, we have only just barely begun to scratch the surface. To truly see and begin to appreciate the beauty and poetry of what God is doing, we have to go all the way back to the beginning ... before there even was a Jewish nation.
As I have already pointed out ... like Joseph, God had told Abraham in Genesis 12:1: "Go from your country, and your people, and your father's household to the land I will show you." Know where that place was? Not Egypt! Canaan! Why is "Canaan" called "The Promised Land"? Because God had promised it to Abraham and his ancestor ... and as we know, God keeps His promises ... and though the Israelites wandered or were forced to leave Canaan, God always brought them back to the land that He had promised them through Abraham ... the land where they, in fact, live now, today.
This is the place where we turn our attention to another man ... a righteous man. Joseph. Hmmm... According to the Bible, this "Joseph" was the favorite son of his father, Jacob! His other brothers were extremely jealous and decided to kill Jospeh and make it look like he had been killed by a wild animal. Fortunately for them and for the Israelites, they didn't kill him. Instead, they sold their brother, Joseph, to a caravan of Ishmaelites headed toward Egypt, who then sold him to a wealthy businessman by the name of Potipher.
Joseph was around 17 at the time and he had caught the eye of Potiphar's wife. Being a "righteous" person, he refused her advances and, out of hurt feelings or resentment for being rejected, Potiphar's wife accused Joseph of attempting to rape her. Joseph was imprisoned, where he interpreted the dreams of two other inmates, who later suggested to the Pharoah that Joseph could interpret the two puzzling dreams that had been troubling the Pharoah ... which not only got Jospeh out of prison but gets him promoted to become the second most powerful man in Pharoah's administration.
Joseph interprets the Pharoah's dreams to mean that Egypt will produce a huge surplus of grain and food for seven years ... followed by seven years of famine. Joseph advises Pharoah: "The plenty will no longer be known in the land because of the famine that will follow, for it will be grievous, and the doubling of Pharoah's dream" ... listen to this, here's the good part ... "and the doubling of Pharoah's dream means that the thing will be fixed by God" (Genesis 41:31-32). By whom? Not by Ra, not by Isis, not by the Pharoah, but by YHWH.
Joseph then uses God's vision to provide for the Egyptians. "Let them gather all the food of those good years that are coming and lay up grain under the authority of Pharoah for food in the cities, and let them keep it. That food shall be a reserve for the land against the seven years of famine that are to befall the land of Egypt, so that the land may not perish through the famine" (Genesis 41: 35-36).
Why did Joseph tell them to store up the surplus? So that the land ... the people ... would not die. Why do the Jews ... including Joseph's family ... settle in the land of Goshen in Egypt? Because of the famine ... because God used Joseph to save the land ... the people ... including the Jews ... and his family ... during a very trying and dangerous time. When Joseph confronts his brothers who sold him to the Ishmaelite traders, he explained to them: "Even though you intended to do me harm, God intended it for good in order to preserve numerous people as He is doing today" (Genesis 50:20). And why did God instruct Joseph to take Mary and Jesus to Egypt? To protect them. To keep them from perishing ... being killed by Herod. And, just as God provided Egypt with surplus grain, He provided gold, frankincense, and myrrh for Joseph and Mary and His Son, Jesus, during a very trying and dangerous time. Beautiful, amen?
When the time was right, God sent another angel to tell Joseph that it was okey for him and Mary and Jesus to return home: "When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 'Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child's life are dead'" (Matthew 2:19).
Just as suddenly, God appeared to Moses ... not in a vision ... but in the form of a burning bush to tell Moses that it was time for the Jewish people to leave Egypt and return to where? Canaan! The land promised to Abraham and his descendants. Where did Joseph (of Nazareth) leave from? Israel ... the land known as Canaan ... and went to Egypt just as his ancestor Jacob did ... and Joseph (of Nazareth) returned to Israel ... the Promised Land ... just like Moses and the Jewish people did during their exodus from Egypt.
Now, when did God tell Joseph that it was okay ... safe ... to return to his homeland? When those who were seeking the child's life were dead. When was it time for Moses to lead the Jews out of Egypt? Four hundred years after they had first come to Egypt. Four hundred years since Joseph had rescued his family and the Egyptian people ... and in so doing, provided a haven ... a safe harbor ... for the Jewish people. Do you understand what I just said? They came to Egypt because God provided them with a safe haven during the seven years of famine ... and they stayed. God provided and they not only survived but flourished ... to the point that the current Pharoah ... and no doubt his administration and the Egyptian people ... were becoming quite concerned. "Look," the Pharoah tells his advisors and leaders, "the Israelite people are more numerous and more powerful than we. Come, let us deal shrewdly with them, or they will increase and, in the event of a war, join our enemies and fight against us and escape from the land" (Exodus 1:9-11).
Now, we need to pause here. For 400 years, the Jewish people have been treated as "covee" slaves. These were different from the "chattel" slaves that we are familiar with. Chattel slaves were seen as trophies, spoils of war, or property that belonged to a single owner. Covee slaves weren't owned by anyone per se but were considered to be second-class citizens who had no ... or limited ... legal rights and were subject to the demand and needs of the government or country that housed them. Covee slaves were not property ... not captured slaves or purchased slaves ... but were previously free settlers ... which is how the Israelites came to be in Egypt in the first place ... and over time were forced into doing labor for the state or government to pay for their taxes with their sweat and labor. Since Jews were aliens living in Egypt and had no rights or limited rights and very little money or opportunity to make money, they paid a "sweat tax" ... forced to contribute to Egyptian society through physical labor ... making bricks and mortar, building roads, canals, monuments, storage facilities like the ones in Pithom or Rameses. And don't miss the cruel irony here. They came to Egypt because Joseph had the foresight to store surplus grain only to be forced to build the storage facilities for the Egyptians' grain later in exchange for the ability ... or privilege, in the Egyptians' eyes ... of living in Egypt as second-class citizens ... and forced to help build the cities of the very people who were oppressing them and exploiting them while forcing them to live in ghettos like Goshen.
So why 400 years? Why did it take so long for God to respond to their misery ... their prayers? I don't pretend to know or understand the mind or the plans of God but there is a marvelous history that I think gives us a clue. Granted, the conditions that the Hebrew people had to endure was harsh ... far from ideal ... but they were clearly able to not only survive but thrive to the point that the Pharoah and the Egyptian leadership and people were growing deeply concerned about the rate by which the number of Israelites were increasing ... to the point that they were worried that the Jews might become an army or join with one of the armies of their enemies, over-throw them, and take over the land of Egypt ... which turned out to be a very valid concern ... only they didn't become an army ... not in the traditional sense. And yet, without their help or the help of a foreign army or armies, God freed the Jew. God fought the battle for them. ... wiping out the Egyptian army without a single chariot, spear, arrow, or soldier and without losing a single Jewish life in the process.
But still ... why 400 years? Because ... get this ... God was using the Egyptians to feed and shelter the Jewish people until they were large enough, numerous enough to leave Egypt ... not to become an army but to become something greater ... to become a nation!
God was fully aware of the Jewish people's plight at the hands of the Egyptians: "I have observed the misery of my people who are in Egypt. I have heard their cry on account of their taskmaster. Indeed, I know their suffering" (Exodus 3:7).
So where was God for all this time? 400 years? Ignoring them? Clearly not. He said that He had His eye on them ... that He observed (could see) their misery. He knows what they've been going through. He knows how they've been suffering. It's not like He was too busy doing something elsewhere and suddenly had the time to pay attention to them. So why the wait?
As I said, I don't pretend to know the mind and purposes of God, I do know that He had a plan and when the time was right, God put His plan into action. God was aware of His people's suffering, but they were not aware that God had a plan. How many Israelites would God need to build a nation? A few hundred? Thousands? Tens of thousands? A million? Maybe more. And while God was building up the people that He would need to build that nation, He had the Egyptians house and feed them so that they could grow in numbers sufficient to leave Egypt and build that nation. And while God didn't cause them to suffer at the hands of the Egyptians ... that was the Egyptians' choice to treat their neighbors that way ... they didn't have to abuse or exploit or oppress the Jews ... nor did God enjoy their suffering ... but their suffering would prepare them for the rigors of the journey ahead and give them the stamina, the heart, and the drive that they would need to re-take Canaan and become a great and power nation.
In order for the Hebrew people to become a great and powerful nation, however ... like Joseph of Nazareth ... they were going to have to step out on the ice ...step out in to the wilderness ... and learn that they could depend on God ... that God was strong enough and sufficient enough to sustain them during a very difficult and arduous time as He led them through the wilderness ... back to Canaan ... back to their homeland ... back to the land that God had promised to Abraham and to Abraham's descendants. And just as God provided gold, frankincense, and myrrh to Joseph and Mary and Jesus until it was safe to come home, God provided for the Israelites during their time of trial and slavery in Egypt. When the Israelites left Egypt, the Egyptians couldn't wait for the Israelites to leave and gave them their gold and silver jewelry to speed them on their way and to ensure that they had enough to establish themselves in another country and hopefully never come back. And so, says the Bible, they plundered the Egyptians with the blessings of the Egyptian Pharoah and the Egyptian people no less.
While it may not have been great living as second-hand citizens in Egypt, what God provided at the hands of the Egyptians was more than enough. "If only we had died by the LORD's hand in Egypt" ... but they didn't die by God's hand in Egypt ... God provided. "When we sat around pots of meat and ate all the food we wanted," they lament (Exodus 16:3), "we remember the fish we ate in Egypt at no cost ... also cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions and garlic" (Numbers 11:5).
Herod tried to thwart God's plan by ordering the execution of all the Jewish boys in Juday two years old and younger. Pharoah, as you may recall, tried to do the same thing in much the same brutal, bloody way. "The king of Egypt said to the Hebrew midwives, 'When you act as midwives to the Hebrew women and see them on the birthing stool, if it is a boy, kill him but if it is a girl, she shall live" (Exodus 1:16).
Let's see ... what kind of midwives? Just seeing if you're paying attention. "Hebrew midwives." Hmmm. God at work preserving His people again? Hebrew midwives instead of Egyptian midwives. Hebrew midwives who disobeyed the Pharoah's orders and did NOT kill the Jewish boys and, in fact, preserved one very important boy ... one, who like Jesus, was appointed by God to save His people. Again, we see God's brilliant and poetic mind. The deliverer of God's people ... born to a Hebrew family ... is rescued from the Nile River by Pharoah's own daughter and Moses' own mother is hired to be Moses' wet nurse! God's deliverer, like the Israeli people, is raised in the very palace of the Pharoah himself. And then, when Moses kills a cruel Egyptian taskmaster who was mercilessly beating a Hebrew worker, is forced to flee, like the Israelites, into the wilderness.
Not a great way to step out on to the ice, to be forced to step out into the wilderness, but in the end, Moses learns the ways of the desert, knows his way around the wilderness ... and while he was leading sheep, God was preparing him to lead His people. Where? Back to Canaan. Back to the land that God had promised to Abraham and his descendants.
Are you beginning to see how beautiful and poetic God's plans are? He did the same when the Assyrians and the Babylonians sieged and destroyed Israel and Judah. At that time, they were led off as chattel, as the victims and spoils of war. But some ... like Daniel ... like Hananiah, Mishael, and Azariah ... later re-named Shadrach, Meshack, and Abednego ... were raised to be officials in the Babylonian Empire. Others ... around 20,000 ... were sent to various parts of the Assyrian empire. More were scattered around the Babylonian empire.
Yes, they were slaves ... no doubt cruelly treated ... but they survived. Once again, God used the enemies of the Israelites to feed and shelter what God called "the remnant" like He did with Joseph and Mary and Jesus. He provided for them for 70 years until it was safe for them to come home and rebuild their lives, their cities, their nation, the Temple. Once again, they were forced to step out on the ice in order to learn, to trust, that God was strong enough to sustain them during trying, difficult times.
Obedience comes in three forms. One, it can be forced on us. We have no choice. We don't obey because we want to ... we obey because we have to ... like the Israelites had to obey the Pharoah and the Egyptian government. Second, there is obedience that comes from experience. Stepping out on the ice like the Israelites had to do ... like Moses had to do ... like Joseph and Mary had to do. The more they trust God the more they trust God. Their obedience is born from that trust. And the third form of obedience comes from faith.
Allow me to demonstrate. Now, this where it can be tricky. Let's suppose that we're standing on the banks of a frozen pond. The side that says that the ice is too thin believes that the ice is too thin. They have very strong opinions and very strong faith that the ice is too thin and that it won't hold them up ... and they might be right ... and they will stay convinced that they are right so long as they don't step out onto the ice. As long as they are convinced that the ice is too thin, they obediently avoid stepping out onto the ice.
On the other hand, you have those who believe that the ice is thick enough to hold them, but they don't step out on the ice to prove their point because they don't have to ... and as long as they don't step out on the ice, their faith is valid.
Both are acting on faith. But God has His way ... as we have just seen ... of pushing us out on to the ice ... and for a moment, we freeze ... paralyzed ... waiting for the sound of ice cracking ... and when nothing happens, we begin to cautiously move around. The more we move around, the more our confidence grows. Our trust and faith that the ice will hold us grows. And before you know it, we're skating and playing hockey ... which wouldn't have happened if God hadn't pushed us out on that ice or we hadn't taken those first nervous, tenuous steps out on to the frozen pond.
I don't know about you, but I'm not always grateful when God forces me out on to the ice. But gradually, over time, I become grateful that God did shove me out into life. And the longer I stand on the ice, the more I move around, the greater my faith that God will provide for me and support me.
This is what we need to learn from Joseph. He got shoved out onto the ice when he agreed to marry Mary and accepted the fact that the child that Mary was carrying in her womb was no ordinary child but the very Son of God. But as God kept shoving him further and further out onto the ice, the more his trust and faith in God increased, so that when God told Joseph to get up and take Mary and Jesus to Egypt, he didn't hesitate. He got up immediately, woke them up, packed up, and headed out of town just ahead of Herod's death squads. And when it was safe for him to go back home, he once again packed up the family and headed back to Nazareth ... trusting in God's plans even if he didn't know what they were or what role, if any, he had to play in God's plan.
I don't think we can comprehend how huge this is unless you have had to move like Joseph and just pull up stakes, move to a new, unfamiliar area ... maybe another country ... and start all over again and re-build your life from scratch all over again. Some of you know and you know how challenging that can be. But if you know that God is with you wherever you go ... as He most surely always is ... then you know that you can step out in faith, head out in a new and unknown direction with confidence. And the more you do it, the more faith and confidence you have in God ... the more willing and easier it is to be obedient to God's leading, amen?
Why can we trust in God's protecting care with a faith that listens to God commands, God promises, and respond like Joseph did? Because God always keeps His word. There are going to be times in our lives when God's commands don't make much sense to us. We listen. But do we step out in faith? Or do we walk away, convinced that God's plans are too crazy or sound too impossible to be true? Do we walk away telling God that we trust him ... 100 percent ... but not this time? Or will we, like Joseph, heed God's call and get up, pack up, and head on out into life ... into the world ... trusting, as Joseph did, that when we pass through the waters, God will be with us ... when we pass through the rivers they shall not overwhelm us ... when we walk through fire, we will not be consumed. Why? Because, as God has promised, He, the Lord our God, the Holy One of Israel, our Savior will be with us (Isaiah 43:2).
We step out in faith because we know that God will make all things work for the good of those who love Him, who have been called according to His purpose. And even though we, like Joseph, don't know or understand what God's plans are or what our part in them is, we know God. We know ... we have faith ... we trust that His plans are to prosper us, not to harm us, to give us hope and a future (Jeremiah 29:11) even if we don't see it or understand it at the time.
So, good people of Love's Chapel, what's it going to be? Are we going to do more than just listen? It's easy to say "yes" while we're standing on the shore, but are we willing to trust God and show how much we trust God by actually stepping out in faith?
Talk is cheap. Faith, however, requires action. In four days, we're going to be starting a new year ... 2026. Will we step into the new year with confidence? With trust? Faith? Go wherever ... whenever ... God may call us? I'm sure that we are going to find out, amen?
