This is the last in a series of four meditations for Christmastide. I hope you have enjoyed reading them

Joseph sat under the welcome shade of the sycamore trees. Mary, his wife and their child also rested nearby. He could see his son chattering away to his mother, who was doing her best to answer his inquisitive questions.

His son? He knew that wasn’t strictly true, according to nature’s law; too much had happened over the last two or three years to make him only too aware of that fact; but the truth was he felt it was now his responsibility to fulfil a father’s role.

The last time they had been on a journey like this Mary had been expecting their first-born any day; the child that now played happily at his mother’s feet. Her latest pregnancy wasn’t obvious yet, still it was hard to have to travel in such conditions. However, circumstances meant that they had become refugees – putting themselves into self-imposed exile, heading towards a land where their ancestors had been treated like slaves.

Joseph knew it was for the best. The vivid dream, warning him of death and despair, had prompted their hurried departure from Bethlehem. Even now, from such a great distance, there were stories exchanged between fellow travellers and the camel trains they passed, telling of King Herod’s murderous slaughter of thousands of innocent children – death on the whim of an egotistical maniac with an inferiority complex

After the wise men had gone, an angel from the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up! Hurry and take the child and his mother to Egypt! Stay there until I tell you to return, because Herod is looking for the child and wants to kill him.” Matthew 2:13

It was as if a dark shroud of mourning was descending on the land; a palpable wail of inconsolable sorrow rising up. What sort of world was this going to be to raise children in?

Hopefully, though, his family was safe now, only one more day till the border crossing and that was merely a desolate rocky outcrop in the Wilderness of Egypt. He’d bought them as far south as he dared, but after crossing they would have to make their way north-west in order to find villages and towns where he might earn his trade as a carpenter. He was grateful for that at least, for who knew when they might be able to return.

The strange gifts they’d been given, by those unexpected visitors, might be of value if their lives depended on it, but somehow he’d couldn’t see Mary agreeing to part with them and who was he to treat such precious gifts so lightly. No, he would rely on his own skills, skills taught to him by his father and ones which he would pass on to his sons in the future, to give them a good chance to earn a decent living and start families of their own.

He looked up at a sudden burst of laughter, and watched as his son ran smiling towards him with his arms open wide.

“Aba, Aba. We have to go – let’s get on our way!”

Joseph scooped him up into his arms and walked back to where his wife was sitting; gently helping her to her feet. Setting his son down, both he and Mary prepared to follow Jesus as he hastened on a little way ahead, leading them towards their new life.

*Sycamore Trees have been cultivated since ancient times. The Pharaohs of Egypt called them Nehet. The oldest sycamore tree is in El Matariya, Egypt and is known as the Virgin Mary Tree.