January 3 Christmas II
If you’re planning a trip to Egypt, there are certain sights you want to be sure not to miss. There are the obvious ancient attractions: the Pyramids of Giza; the Egyptian Museum, home to the mummified remains of Ramses the Great; the Sphinx; and the Valley of the Kings, the final resting place of the famed King Tut. And after you’ve exhausted the Pharaohs and their architectural legacy, turn to the next page in your Lonely Planet travel guide and you’ll discover a whole other historical layer to explore.
You’ll want to visit sites such as Old, Islamic Cairo with its grand mosques and fortresses; and the site of the great library of Alexandria, once home to the original manuscripts of the famous Greek philosophers and playwrights. Turn yet another page in your travel guide and you’ll come upon a section of particular importance to us Christians: the supposed authentic locations of many well beloved biblical events: Mt. Nebo, where Moses viewed the Promised Land, the rock at Horeb, which Moses struck and water came out to quench the thirst of the desert wanderers, and the list goes on. It even recommends a visit to Coptic Cairo where one can find the location where the Holy Family, Joseph, Mary, and the infant Jesus, stayed during their flight to Egypt after being warned of Herod’s desire to search for and destroy the child. It is ironic that you have to essentially dig through your travel guide to find the information about this site … beneath pyramids, beneath mosques, because that is literally where the Holy Family’s refuge is located.
I have not seen this place with my own eyes, but I have heard stories from friends and relatives who have made the pilgrimage in taxis through Coptic Cairo, one of the most impoverished and underdeveloped parts of the city. The dirt streets are narrow, pot-hole ridden, and lined with uncensored life. If it weren’t for the taxis, it can seem as though you have traveled back in time several hundred years. The entrance to Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’ supposed hiding spot is unassuming. A short, narrow doorway leads into the side of a church and a stairway immediately goes down into the crypt. The crypt, once the sanctuary of a 4th or 5th century church, and presumably someone’s home in the 1st century, is small, cramped and muddy. The little room is known to flood when the Nile water levels are high. Pilgrims are allowed to look into the little room for a moment, imagine the three wearied travelers, Mary and Joseph tending to their newborn, and then move on.
The stories of the Holy Family in Egypt are a treasured part of the history and culture of the Coptic Christians in Cairo. Coptic Christian literally means Egyptian Christian. They make up the largest Christian population in the Middle East, and their ancestors embraced Christianity very early, in the 1st century. Lore of Joseph, Mary, and Jesus’ 4-year Egyptian visit is fairly detailed within the Coptic community, including Joseph’s reported employment in the local fortress, as well as the exact route the family took on their journey. Generation after generation tells not only a travel story, but also an amazingly detailed loved story of how Joseph cared for his family.
Of course, you will find none of these details in scripture. The passage from the Gospel of Matthew we heard is the only mention of the family’s flight to Egypt in all four of the Gospels. Matthew simply writes, “Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.” The story the Coptic Christians tell is one that, you might say, happened between the lines. All we know is what Matthew chose to highlight in his text, or perhaps only what Matthew knew. This doesn’t make the story the Coptic Christians tell any less important or true.
I’m told that a visit to this ancient spot in Cairo is very moving. Putting aside questions of historical accuracy, such as whether it is really the location the Holy Family chose as their home away from home, one can focus rather on the power of the story for generations and generations of Christians there. They know that Christ, the messiah, had lived with them. He had been there, in their homes. And for a brief time they were privileged to care for that family who came in need; they were privileged to care for the one who would care for us all.
The story the Coptic Christians tell of the Holy Family is one that should be familiar to each of us. We each have stories that aren’t written down in any book, yet they are treasured. Many of our sacred stories can only be read between the lines. They are stories of God at work in our own lives, of encountering the holy through one another, in big ways and small, and they remind us that we are each connected to the larger Christian story. The official milestones in our lives can be obvious to others: we marry, we divorce, we have children, we lose a loved one, we move from one town to another, one church community to another… but the stories that may not be reflected in an official way, the unrecorded stories, are no less important or true as witnesses of God touching our lives. Like the apocryphal stories of the holy family in Egypt, these smaller stories can show God at work in our lives as much as any major plot line.
During this season of the incarnation, when we celebrate Emmanuel, “God with us,” we recall a simple story of a time God was with a community, a story treasured and retold. What are the stories of this community? What are your stories of God in your life? Share them with one another. Share them beyond the doors of this church. God has visited this place, and there are pilgrims out there who are searching for these stories and a community that treasures them. Amen.