Troublesome Topic: HOW DID JOSEPH AND MARY GET ALL THOSE GIFTS TO EGYPT?

They didn’t.

In verse 13, the angel tells Joseph to “flee” meaning to get out of there as fast as he could, only taking what was necessary or easy to carry.

Fleeing as a fugitive was something they knew about from their history; it was common in ancient times.

They couldn’t leave anything with relatives in Bethlehem because none of their relatives wanted anything to do with them.

He couldn’t hide all that stuff in caves; there was no time for that, and the likelihood of it being found was high anyway.

I envision the Wisemen leaving behind the camels they had used to bring the gifts with them, but Joseph did not want to attract attention to himself by having a caravan of loaded camels. Herod knew the Wisemen had come with lots of camels, so his soldiers were told what to look for. Joseph wanted to look like an average family traveling to Egypt; he did not want to stand out. He did not have time to load all those camels anyway. So he probably took as much of the gold as he could realistically load on one camel, the most docile one, on which Mary rode holding Jesus.

They had to abandon most of that stuff and flee for their lives.

To us it seems like a disappointment that they received all that stuff and then had to abandon it. But it was never about the stuff. First it was an honoring act done by wise, wealthy strangers, which represented the rest of the world for which Jesus would die. Secondly it was a confirmation to Joseph and Mary about how special this child was. Those realities remained even after the gifts had been abandoned by Joseph and looted by others.

This is where our tradition of giving gifts at Christmas time come from; but it was never about the gifts. If we place our emphasis on the giving and receiving of gifts, we have chosen to emphasize that which the original Christmas story de-emphasized by the fact that fleeing requires leaving behind most of one’s material goods.