What did Mary and Joseph do after Jesus was born? Here’s what the Bible says

The Virgin Mary gave birth to the promised Son of God in the town of Bethlehem — just as the angel and the Scripture had foretold. The buildup to this birth in Luke’s Gospel is eventful. In Luke 1 there are angelic appearances and revelations, a visit between pregnant female relatives, songs of praise and wonder, and a formerly barren woman giving birth to the forerunner of the Messiah.

After many years of waiting for the Messiah, the promised Son was born: “And she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in swaddling cloths and laid him in a manger” (Luke 2:7).

But what about after Jesus’ birth? What happened in the hours and days that followed? Are there things we can both see explicitly and deduce implicitly from the biblical data?

1. Shepherds rushed to Bethlehem to see the newborn.

This was the same day as the birth. The angel told them, “For unto you is born this day in the city of David a Savior, who is Christ the Lord” (Luke 2:11). The shepherds would find the baby still in the manger (2:12; see 2:7).

So in the hours after the birth of Jesus, Mary and Joseph were receiving shepherds as visitors.

2. Jesus was circumcised on the eighth day.

According to Genesis 17, circumcision was the sign of God’s covenant with Abraham.

In Luke 2:21 we’re told, “And at the end of eight days, when he was circumcised, he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb.”

Mary and Joseph were obeying the law of Moses.

3. Mary was persevering through her time of ritual uncleanness.

According to Leviticus 12, a woman was ritually unclean for several weeks if she gave birth to a boy. Biblical law prohibited her from going to the sanctuary until her time of uncleanness was complete. Once her uncleanness was over, she was to bring an offering to the temple (Leviticus 12:5-8).

In Luke 2:22-24, Mary kept the regulations of the law, and at the appointed time she brought the appropriate offering to the temple.

4. Mary and Joseph received visiting wise men.

These men from the east brought gifts for the Christ child (Matthew 2:11-12). They arrived at “the house” where Mary and Joseph were staying (2:11).

This house would have been the same relative’s home where the couple first arrived in Luke 2:1-7. (The “guest room” in Luke 2:7 was not the guest room of a motel; it was the guest room of a home.)

The wise men didn’t arrive on the night of Jesus’ birth. Matthew 2 doesn’t report how much time has elapsed since the birth, but Herod’s plan to kill babies who were “two years old or under” suggests that when the wise men came, more than a year had passed since Jesus’ birth.

5. Mary and Joseph went to Egypt.

Still in Bethlehem with Mary and Jesus, Joseph had a dream, in which an angel told him, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him” (Matthew 2:13). When Joseph awoke, he followed the angel’s instructions and left Bethlehem, taking his little family to Egypt.

While we only have snapshots of things that happened in the hours, days, weeks, and months that followed Jesus’ birth, these snapshots should be studied and treasured.

This essay was originally published at Dr. Mitchell Chase’s Substack, “Biblical Theology.”