Out of Obscurity, Jesus Comes to Save the World

TEXT: Matthew 2:19-23

After receiving a message from an angel of the Lord letting them know that the tyrant Herod was dead, Joseph and Mary return to their home country with the Child Jesus. However, while they were on their way, possibly back to Bethlehem, Joseph heard that Herod's son, Ar-che-la-us, had taken his father's place. Ar-che-la-us was just as cruel as his father had been, and apparently had inherited his father's paranoia about this new "King of the Jews." Despite his father's massacre, he probably was still on the lookout just to make sure that this particular Child had not somehow escaped. Because of this, Joseph was "warned of God in a dream," and he took Mary and Jesus into Galilee instead of Judea.