Reclining in the arms of the sphinx

My favorite Christmas painting, isn't a Christmas painting, but instead Luc Olivier Merson's rendering of the Holy Family's Flight into Egypt.

I prefer to think that the sphinx in the painting isn't just some small sphinx statue, but the acutal sphinx of the valley of the kings. The enormous sphinx in actual size.

The Mother of God reclines in its arms because she and Her Son are not limited by space and time. They dominate space and time just as she dominates the old order that created the sphinx.