The Flight To Egypt Is Not What It Seems!
Homily By Father Matthew Brown - Saint Mary Magdalen Orthodox Church (OCA)
Parallels Between Egypt, Exodus, and Christ’s Victory
I am going to draw some interesting parallels between the Gospel story about the flight to Egypt and the return, the story of Exodus, and the death and resurrection of Christ, and how these things are figured in the passage we just read .
When we think about Egypt and what it comes to symbolize in the book of Exodus, it symbolizes hell. It is a powerful spiritual image. After the Hebrew people crossed the Red Sea and were in the desert for a while, they began complaining. They had no food, it was difficult, and they grumbled. God sent quail and manna, split the rock and gave them water, yet they still said they wanted to return to Egypt.
They spoke of the flesh pots, longing for the meat and comfort they remembered. This gives us an important image of hell. Hell is not presented here as fire, brimstone, or devils tormenting people in boiling oil. It is tempting, comfortable, pleasant to some degree.
This is what sin is like. It allures and seduces. There is something attractive about Egypt.
Herod stands in this story as a new Pharaoh. In Exodus, Pharaoh represents the devil, the agent of evil who keeps people imprisoned. The Hebrew people represent the Church and humanity, especially those struggling to be freed. Sin and hell are described as bondage and slavery.
It is like someone who fell into gambling debt, was sold into slavery to repay it, and became a debt slave. This is how sin operates. We are complicit in it, yet oppressed by it at the same time. The sinner is condemnable, yet also someone you can sympathize with. A victim and a victimizer at once.
Think of generational sin. A father abuses his son because his own father abused him. Hurt people hurt other people.
In the story of Christ’s Nativity, Herod seeks revenge like Pharaoh. In Exodus, the tenth plague was the death of the firstborn. In the Nativity, Herod seeks to kill the firstborn children. The repetition is clear.
In Exodus, Pharaoh loses his firstborn. In the Nativity, God does not lose His firstborn, even though Herod attempts to kill Him. We see parallels, but also differences. We see the power of God and the failure of Herod, who represents the devil.
Jesus, Mary, and Joseph flee to Egypt. Symbolically, this represents Christ entering death, entering the realm of hell, and returning to reclaim the promised land. The flight into Egypt becomes an image of death and resurrection.
It is a reversal. The kingdom of death is used against itself. This is what we mean when we say Christ trampled down death by death. Death becomes the instrument of its own destruction.
When Herod dies and it is safe to return, the Holy Family comes back to the promised land. This is an image of conquest, of reentering from death into life. The Nativity marks the beginning of Christ’s spiritual invasion of the world to reclaim it as the kingdom of God.
When the Hebrew people entered the promised land, they cleansed it of foreign occupiers. Spiritually, this is not about genocide. It is about cleansing the heart. The promised land can be understood as the human heart, filled with foreign occupiers, personal demons, disordered passions. It must be purified so it becomes a paradise.
The theme of battle appears again in Exodus. Moses and Pharaoh stand opposed. The Red Sea parts, the Hebrew people pass through, Pharaoh’s army is drowned. The conflict is clear.
This theme continues because the people of God are in bondage. They have been taken captive and must be liberated.
When Christ begins His ministry, He casts out demons and heals the sick. Both are acts of liberation. He frees people from oppression and spiritual slavery.
When Christ dies and harrows Hades, He empties it. What was once the realm of death becomes transformed.
The wise men can be contrasted with Pharaoh’s magicians. In Exodus, the magicians imitate signs but are eventually outmatched. In the Nativity, the wise men refuse to be manipulated by Herod. They choose the true King and return home by another way.
The Nativity mirrors and reverses Exodus. Both point prophetically toward the death and resurrection of Christ.
What we see is the beginning of liberation. We are in bondage through our own sins and through the sins of others, personally and socially. Egypt is tempting, yet it is hell. The goal is to flee Egypt and turn the heart into a promised land.
The flight to Egypt, the return, the Exodus, and the death and resurrection of Christ are all connected. They build toward Pascha.
Christ is born.
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