Nations in the Nativity: Egypt

OT Lesson: Ezekiel 29:2-3a, 8-12 (NIV)

Son of man, set your face against Pharaoh king of Egypt and prophesy against him and against all Egypt. Speak to him and say: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says:

“I am against you, Pharaoh king of Egypt,
you great monster lying among your streams.”

Therefore this is what the Sovereign Lord says: “I will bring a sword against you and kill both man and beast. Egypt will become a desolate wasteland. Then they will know that I am the Lord.

Because you said, ‘The Nile is mine; I made it,’ therefore I am against you and against your streams, and I will make the land of Egypt a ruin and a desolate waste from Migdol to Aswan, as far as the border of Cush. The foot of neither man nor beast will pass through it; no one will live there for forty years. I will make the land of Egypt desolate among devastated lands, and her cities will lie desolate for forty years among ruined cities. And I will disperse the Egyptians among the nations and scatter them through the countries.”

NT Lesson: Matthew 2:13-15 (NRSV)

Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the Child and His mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the Child, to destroy Him.’ Then Joseph got up, took the Child and His mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’

Sermon

Introduction

Good morning. Today is the third Advent Sunday with the topic of Egypt and the theme of Joy. Now I cannot help but mentioning the Christmas Joy offering. It is used for the church workers in need and also the students in Presbyterian colleges and seminaries. The student debt forgiveness by President Biden used to be a hot topic. But the best thing is, if possible, not to get into a debt in the first place. I actually achieved that, by applying for scholarships at probably almost fifty different scholarships. I failed for most of them, but I got scholarships from several different places, including the PCUSA scholarships, which was funded by the Christmas Joy offering. You did not know me while I was in the seminary, but your Christmas joy offering brought me great joy, helping me not getting into a debt. And there is a box for the toy drive. Yesterday, I took Samuel to Walmart and let him choose a toy. He thought he was getting a toy, but the recycling truck he chose got into the box. I explained to him that this toy will give another child Christmas joy. So let us continue to give joy to other people especially on this Joy Advent Sunday.

Basics of Egypt

Now it is time to talk about Egypt. There are Egyptian cookies at the back of the sanctuary, thanks to Bruce McConnell. He left the cookies at church yesterday, and I had hard time keeping my hands off. Egypt is one of the four ancient civilisations. As you all know, all the civilisations emerged at the riverside, and Egypt was not an exception. The Nile river runs over four thousand miles from Rwanda up north to the Mediterranean Sea. Every year the river overflows making the land fertile. Egyptian civilisations has many wonders including the pyramids which is the tombs of the kings or Pharaohs. I went there and climbed up a few pyramids, not knowing that it is illegal. Later I read periodically the news that some tourists were arrested by the Egyptian police officers for climbing upon the pyramids. I was just lucky. Egyptians invented papyrus which is root of the English word, paper. 

Egyptian invented hieroglyphs as their writing system, which later became Phoenician alphabets, Hebrew alphabets, Greek alphabets, Latin alphabets, and eventually became English alphabets. So without ancient Egyptians, we wouldn’t have the English alphabets we have now. Egyptian arts and artefacts are so interestingly beautiful. Personally I think it is interesting that Egypt was the only ancient civilisation where the skinny women were considered beautiful just like modern days. I am not advocating the modern concept of beauty, but just getting the facts straight. The concept of beauty in human brain comes from the scarcity. When the food is not enough, it is difficult to eat a lot and be big. Then people think big is beautiful. When the food is abundant, it is difficult not to eat and get skinny. Then people think skin and bone is beautiful. In modern days, we think the skinny is beautiful because food is everywhere and doing a diet is very difficult. In the same way, all other ancient civilisations considered big women beautiful because they all lacked food. Only super rich women can be big. But in ancient Egypt, all the noble and royal ladies were very skinny. I think that it clearly shows how abundant Egypt was when it comes to food. And because of the abundance, all the early Jewish ancestors including Abraham ran to Egypt whenever they were hungry. And then later they settled there, eventually became slaves for four hundred years until they escaped Egypt under the leadership of Moses. After the Exodus, the Israelites complained a lot on the way to the promised land. If you read carefully their complaints, it is mostly about the abundance of food in Egypt—“We were eating better when we were slaves in Egypt than now as free men.”

Jesus Was Not an Illegal Immigrant

Then, in the Nativity story, we all know that the holy family fled to Egypt escaping the bloody sword of Herod the Great, and lived there about four years. Jesus was a toddler when the magi came, so the toddler Jesus on the way to Egypt must have asked million times, ‘Are we there yet?’ But before I continue, I need to get one thing right. I am not jumping into the politics. Many times, I see on the internet saying that ‘Jesus and the Holy family were also illegal immigrants to Egypt, so we also need to open our borders and let all the people in.’ I understand their point. Again, I am not jumping into the politics. If you support that, that is good. If you are against that, that is good. I just want to make the fact straight—Jesus was NOT an illegal immigrant. In ancient Egypt, there was no immigration law and there was no border control. If there is no law, there is no breaking the law. How can you break a law which does not even exist?

Let me give you an example. In Indiana, the legal age for tobacco used to be 18, and then the law changed to 21, effective from July 1st, 2020. Let say that you have a convenient store where you sell tobaccos. If you sell it to 19 year-old boy today, it is clearly illegal. But if you did the same thing five years ago, in 2018, that was not illegal because there was no law back then in Indiana against the sales of tobacco to 19 year-old boy. In this country today, there is an immigration law and border control. If you cross the border without a permit, that is illegal because there clearly IS a law against it. But at the time of Jesus, there was no immigration law in Egypt. You crossed the Egyptian border million times, and that is not illegal because there was no law against it. Again, I am not jumping into the politics. I am not saying the immigration law in  this country is either good or bad. That is yours to judge. I am simply saying, “Get the fact straight.” And don’t call my Jesus illegal because he was NOT. That is all I am saying.

Cursed Egypt

Let’s get back to the Bible. First Sunday of Advent when we talked about Persia, I said that they were cursed a lot in the Bible, which is true. Guess what. Egypt had been cursed way more than all the Mesopotamian countries combined. So many times Egypt was cursed by God through the mouth of so many prophets including very Moses. One day I thought how I would feel if the Bible is so against Korea. To your surprise, there is no mention of Korean in the Bible at all. Breaking news—there is no mention of the United States of America in the Bible! Now, let’s imagine that the Bible curses our country like million times: ‘America is evil. God will destroy America. God will slaughter every single one of them. God curse America.’ Then how would you feel? How can we even read the Bible? How can we even stay as Christians any longer? That is the exact reality that all Christian Egyptians have been facing for over two thousand years. Many people don’t think there are Christians in Egypt, but in fact, there are over ten million Christians in Egypt now. Most of them are Coptic Christians, but there are Presbyterians as well. And in the old days under the Roman empire, the whole population was practically Christians. Anyway, do you get how the Christian Egyptians would feel whenever they read the Bible, especially the OT?

Jesus Gives Joy

When I was in the seminary, there were many international students. Almost everybody mistook me as one of them, but I was not one of the international students. I know, I look like an international student, I speak like an international student, and I think like an international student. But I had the US citizenship and thus I was not one of the international students. Wow, today I am getting two facts straight. Anyway, one of the international students at McCormick Theological Seminary was from Egypt. His name is Amir, which means in Arabic a prince. So I told him that I am better than he because my name, Je, means a king. He is a prince, but I am a king. Anyway, one day I asked him, “How can you even read the Bible? How can you reconcile your faith with your ethnicity, since the Bible is full of curse against Egyptians, your people?” And he answered me, “It is really hard and sometimes painful to read the Bible, especially the OT. But baby Jesus came to us. We welcomed baby Jesus. We saved the Saviour by providing Him and His family a shelter, places to sleep, foods to eat, water to drink. By coming to us, Jesus gave us the chance to serve Him. Jesus reconciled us with God by simply being served and helped from us.”

So for all the Christian Egyptians, this portion of the Nativity story where Jesus fled to Egypt is by far the most, I mean, the single most important Scripture among all over thirty one thousand verses in the Bible. When I went to Egypt, I also visited the place which is supposedly where the holy family stayed. The Egyptians did not know who this toddler was, but they showed kindness anyway. In many fairy tales, we see prince or princess got cursed by a witch, and at the end of the story, magically the curse is lifted. This is the magical moment when the thousands of years old curses on Egyptians were all lifted when the Egyptians showed simple kindness to a stranger. It is not only Jesus fled to Egypt as a helpless baby, but also Jesus intentionally visited the Egyptians to lift the curses from them as the Saviour of the world. Jesus was not only a Saviour of the Jews but of all the peoples in the world even including the cursed Egyptians. Now for over two thousand years, all the Christian Egyptians can have joy in Jesus Christ our Saviour.

Conclusion

Friends, the Egyptians showed small kindness to Jesus without knowing it. And then they were filled with joy, not just one day but for thousands of years. And Jesus tells us, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.” So whenever we show kindness to someone, Jesus thinks that we did it for Him. And then as Jesus lifted all the curses from the Egyptians, Jesus will forgive our sins accordingly and bless us with His everlasting blessings. So at least during the Advent and Christmas season, which is through Epiphany Sunday, how about we do one small act of kindness a day? It could be your family. It could be your friends or neighbours. Or it could be a total stranger. Then we will be filled with the true Joy of Christmas just like the Egyptians. Amen.