The Life of Jesus Advent Calendar - Day 4: The Flight to Egypt

Introduction

In reality, we know very little about Jesus's childhood, but we can see from today's passage that his status as King was opposed from the beginning. Herod had no desire to yield his throne to another, and so sought to destroy Jesus. God in his great wisdom sends an angel to Joseph who tells him to take his family and flee to Egypt until they are told to return. Joseph listens and takes his family to safety. Matthew also draws a parallel with the story of Israel: just as Jacob and his family went to Egypt and the nation was later rescued by God, Jesus too goes down to Egypt and is brought back by God, identifying with the story of his people and preparing for the work he will one day do to save them. I always marvel at the providence of God and how we see his perfect plan to save us revealed throughout Scripture.

Assembling your stocking

I feel like I've been saying this a lot, but this stocking is also pretty straightforward.

You will want to make sure that you understand how Joseph, Mary and Jesus fit together before you stitch them down. The idea is that they're facing towards Egypt with Herod standing ominously in the foreground. Because they're all facing away I haven't given them faces, but now that I'm thinking about it, you could give Herod a face so he's not watching them, as he doesn't successfully find Jesus.

I stitched some stonework detail onto the pyramids to give them a bit of dimension - there's a suggestion on how to do this in my template.

You can watch a brief video of this stocking being assembled on my Facebook or Instagram.

Please support me

Don't forget that you can support me by buying products from my Etsy Store, or buying me a coffee. Every single like, comment or share on social media is also a great boost.