The Lord’s Own Timely Flight

That is why the Word himself, having become man for our sakes, stooped to hide himself when he was sought, as we do, and also, when he was persecuted, to flee and avoid the designs of his enemies. For it was fitting that, as by hunger and thirst and suffering, so also by hiding and fleeing he should show that he had taken our flesh and become man. So at the very first, as soon as he became man, when he was a little child, he himself through his angel commanded Joseph, “Get up, take the young child and his mother, and flee into Egypt, for Herod will seek the young child’s life.” And when Herod was dead, we find him withdrawing to Nazareth because of Archelaus, Herod’s son. [a]

And later, when he was showing himself to be God and healed the withered hand, the Pharisees went out and held a council against him, how they might destroy him. But when Jesus knew it, he withdrew from there. So too when he raised Lazarus from the dead: “From that day on,” says the Scripture, “they plotted to put him to death. So Jesus no longer walked openly among the Jews, but went from there into the country near the wilderness.” Again, when our Savior said, “Before Abraham was, I am,” “the Jews picked up stones to throw at him; but Jesus hid himself and went out of the temple.” And “passing through the midst of them, he went on his way,” and “so passed by.”