13 Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream, saying, "Arise, take the young Child and His mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I bring you word; for Herod will seek the young Child to destroy Him."
14 When he arose, he took the young Child and His mother by night and departed for Egypt,
15 and was there until the death of Herod, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the Lord through the prophet, saying, "Out of Egypt I called My Son."
There are themes here of direction from God and dependence upon Him. God intervened in the lives of Mary, Joseph, and Jesus and directed them to go to Egypt. This can inspire and motivate us to become sensitive to the promptings of the Spirit - He wants to commune and communicate with us, and we can be challenged to learn to listen to Him. The family obeyed and were beneficiaries of God's protection - He led them from Bethlehem, to Egypt, and then ultimately to Nazareth. This can challenge us to completely surrender our lives to the hand of Almighty God.
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The Christmas narrative can remind us not only of God's gift to the world in sending His Son, but can also illustrate for us the importance of worship, as well as the importance of following God's direction. The story has quite a few angelic visitations, and after the wise men had been directed in a dream to not return to Herod, who wished to take the life of the newborn King, Joseph received a visitation in a dream, telling him to take his wife, Mary, and baby Jesus and go to Egypt. They received direction and protection by the hand of Almighty God.
The Bible tells us in Psalm 32:
7 You are my hiding place; You shall preserve me from trouble; You shall surround me with songs of deliverance. Selah
8 I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.
There's a story on the Baptist Press website about a man named Brian Mackert - he was the "28th kid to a polygamist father with four wives and 31 children." He was raised in the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (FLDS). Brian's mother divorced the family patriarch, and Brian became angry as a teenager - He, in fact, wanted to kill his father.
Brian entered the Navy, and as he continued to feed on that determination to take his father's life, a chaplain intervened - Brian was directed to psychiatric and substance abuse treatment, but the hatred did not wane. He is quoted as saying: "It helped me come to the realization that killing him wouldn't make anything better, but I still hated him."
Years passed, Brian got married, and his wife said she could not become a Mormon - they began to attend a Baptist church, and Mackert gave his life to Christ. He later made a very important phone call. Brian says, "I called my dad. We hadn't spoken in 13 years," adding, "I talked to him and forgave him and asked him to forgive me for having judged him, because God hadn't put me on earth to be his judge." The story says:
That phone call didn't change their relationship, but it did change Mackert. "It had everything to do with me letting go of the bitterness and the anger."
And he found God slowly drawing him back to his former polygamist community to reach his people.
The FLDS had received some bad publicity a few years ago involving the infamous polygamist Jeffs family, a family that Brian's family had grown up with. Brian says:
"The leaders were charged with embezzling $12 million from the welfare system, so all those benefits were frozen for their families," Mackert said.For a community of mostly women and children with a 70 percent unemployment rate and a 90 percent poverty rate, "it was basically a humanitarian crisis," he said. "People were starving."The Short Creek Community along the Arizona-Utah border -- stretching from about 20 miles south of Colorado City to about 20 miles north -- had about 10,000 people, many in polygamist families, impoverished and hungry.So Mackert did the best thing he could think of -- he got food and stocked a 10,000-square-foot warehouse. In July 2016, Short Creek Family Services did its first food distribution feeding more than 100 families. Now, more than a year later, they're distributing 24 tons of food per month to feed 1,000 families.
As he began to minister to the people of the community, a church was started. And, Southern Baptist churches in the region are partnering to reach the FLDS/polygamist community.
You know, Brian could have run away and run to stay. He had his share of difficulties and has encountered opposition - but he continues to stay the course. He can identify with what are called the "lost boys" of that religious sect: those that didn't fit in. There is enormous spiritual need...his first marriage ended, and his current wife has an extensive background in trauma counseling, which is a good match for the community.
Other activities:
They've purchased a house that will serve as lodging for missions teams who come in the future. They fill the seats at their dinner table with those who can't afford to eat or who just need a friend. They're doing a Christmas shoe drive for people so desperate for shoes that they cut the toes out of the ones they have to make them fit longer.
Brian Mackert was on a course toward death - intent on taking the life of his father and walking in a path away from God. But, he reversed course, and God is using Him in what many might regard as an unlikely setting. You have to recognize God's direction in this man's life, as well as His protection in the midst of a community where he wasn't exactly welcomed back originally.
God promises that as we seek Him, we will find Him. Sometimes it can be in ways that do not make sense in our human understanding. But, we can be attentive to the leadership of the Spirit to set the course for our lives.
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