We come to the end of the Christmas season, and the Gospel reading assigned to us is jarring. We've spent weeks with angels and shepherds, with wise men and star-light, with Mary's Magnificat and the peaceful scenes around the manger. We've sung "Silent Night" and "Joy to the World." Our nativity sets remain on display, frozen in that perfect moment of adoration.
And now Matthew tells us what happened next.
The angel appears again to Joseph—not to announce good news, but to issue an urgent warning: "Get up, take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him."
There is no time. No preparation. No gathering of belongings. The Holy Family flees in the night. The King of Heaven becomes a refugee. The Light of the World moves through shadows.
This is how the Christmas story actually continues—not with peace on earth, but with a family fleeing for their lives.
I. When the Angels Bring Warning
Joseph had received angelic visits before. The first angel told him not to be afraid to take Mary as his wife. That angel announced the greatest joy in history: "She will give birth to a son, and you are to give him the name Jesus, because he will save his people from their sins."
But now? Now the angel brings a warning. "Flee. Take the child. Herod wants to kill him."
This is the paradox we must hold as we close the Christmas season: The Savior of the world needed saving. The one who would deliver humanity needed to be delivered in the night. God himself required refuge.
We want our Christmas story to end with the wise men's gifts, with that tableau of worship and wonder. We want to pack away our decorations and carry that warmth into January. But Matthew won't let us. He tells us that Herod heard about this newborn king and was furious. He tells us about the slaughter of innocents. He tells us about Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted.
This is not the Christmas we decorated for.
But it is the Christmas that happened. And perhaps this is the Christmas we most need to hear as we prepare to return to ordinary time, to the routine of our lives, to a world that often feels more like Herod's kingdom than God's.
II. Christ the Refugee
The Holy Family fled to Egypt. Think about that geography, that symbolism. Egypt—the house of bondage, the place of Israel's slavery, the nation from which God once rescued his people with mighty signs and wonders.
Now Egypt becomes the place of refuge.
This reversal is crucial. Christ doesn't simply repeat Israel's story—he redeems it. He enters into it completely, gathers up all of its pain and trauma, and transforms it from within.
Egypt, which represented everything opposed to God's people, becomes the shelter for God's Son. The place of Israel's deepest wound becomes the Holy Family's sanctuary.
Do you see what God is doing? He's telling us that there is no place too dark, no geography too cursed, no location too far from Jerusalem's temple for him to be present. Christ will enter any place—even Egypt—and make it holy by his presence there.
This matters for us because we all have our "Egypts"—those places in our lives or in our world that seem godless, that feel like exile, that represent everything opposed to what is holy and good. And the Gospel tells us: Christ has already been there. Christ has already sanctified those dark places with his presence.
When we find ourselves in exile—whether literal or spiritual—we're not abandoned. We're walking a path Christ himself has walked.
III. The Children of Bethlehem
But we cannot move on without acknowledging the horror that Matthew places in this story. While the Holy Family escaped, other families did not. Herod's soldiers came to Bethlehem and slaughtered every male child two years old and under.
Matthew quotes Jeremiah: "A voice is heard in Ramah, weeping and great mourning, Rachel weeping for her children and refusing to be comforted, because they are no more."
Why does Matthew include this? Why does God's plan unfold this way? Why didn't the angel warn all the families? Why did these innocent children die?
The text offers no explanation. No theodicy. No justification.
It simply places this grief within the story of salvation and lets it stand there, unresolved.
This is perhaps the most honest thing Scripture does. It acknowledges that Christ's coming into the world did not immediately end all suffering. It admits that God's redemption of the world moves through history's tragedies, not around them.
The children of Bethlehem become the first martyrs of the Christian story, dying not for their own confession of faith, but simply for being born in proximity to the Messiah.
We know something about this kind of grief in our community, don't we? We know about children and young people whose lives were cut short by violence. We know about mothers and grandmothers who weep and refuse to be comforted. We know about names called out in prayer—young people from our families, from our streets, from our schools—whose deaths make no sense, who were simply in the wrong place, or born into the wrong circumstances, or caught up in systems of violence they didn't create.
The children of Bethlehem remind us that we live between the "already" and the "not yet"—that the Kingdom has come in Christ, but its fullness is still unfolding. They remind us that our grief is not outside God's story but woven into it, that our tears are remembered, that the names we carry in our hearts are known to God.
And so as we prepare to leave the Christmas season and return to ordinary time, we carry with us both the joy of the angels' song and the grief of Rachel's weeping. We hold both the wonder of incarnation and the reality of a world still waiting for complete redemption.
This is honest faith. This is mature Christianity. This is what it means to follow a Savior who was himself a refugee child, who knew what it meant to have violence threaten his very existence from birth.
IV. Hidden Years and Our Hidden History
After Herod died, the angel appeared to Joseph again: "Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel." But hearing that Herod's son ruled in Judea, Joseph was afraid. So guided by another dream, he settled in Nazareth.
Do you notice the pattern? Joseph receives guidance one step at a time. Not a comprehensive plan. Not a full itinerary. Just the next faithful action.
"Go to Egypt."
"Leave Egypt."
"Don't go to Judea."
"Settle in Nazareth."
This is how most of us experience guidance in our lives—not with complete clarity about the future, but with enough light for the next step.
And then comes the hidden years. We know almost nothing about Jesus's childhood in Nazareth. The Son of God lived in obscurity. The Light of the World burned quietly in a forgotten corner of Galilee. The King of Kings grew up in a town so insignificant that people later asked, "Can anything good come from Nazareth?"
Church, this matters to us in particular ways.
Because we know something about hidden years, don't we? We know about histories that were deliberately obscured, stories that were not written down, contributions that were erased. We know about ancestors who survived and built and created and worshiped in the shadows, whose significance was hidden from the official records.
We know about Egypt too—not as metaphor but as Africa, as the continent our ancestors were stolen from. And we know about forced migrations, about families torn apart in the night, about children who never saw their parents again.
The Christ child became a refugee in Africa. Think about that. Jesus, Mary, and Joseph—a Black and Brown family—found sanctuary in Africa when Herod's violence made Judea unsafe. Egypt sheltered the Holy Family. African soil held the feet of the incarnate God.
This is our story in particular ways. When we talk about Christ the refugee, we're not speaking abstractly. Our grandparents and great-grandparents knew forced migration. They knew what it meant to flee violence. They knew about building life in a strange land while longing for home.
And they knew about Nazareth too—about being from places that the powerful dismissed, about coming from towns and neighborhoods that people said couldn't produce anything good. "Can anything good come from Nazareth?" sounds a lot like what's been said about Minden, about North Louisiana, about Black communities across this country.
But here's what the Gospel tells us: God chooses those places. God doesn't just visit the margins—he makes his home there. He doesn't just acknowledge the overlooked—he becomes one of them.
The years in Nazareth teach us that Christ is present in the ordinary, working in the waiting, dwelling in the hidden places of our lives. And if our history has been hidden, if our stories have been pushed to the margins, if our neighborhoods have been dismissed—well, that just means we're in good company. That's where God has always chosen to dwell.
A Story From Our Own Journey
Let me tell you about Mother Jenkins.
Some of you remember her—she passed about fifteen years ago now. Mother Jenkins used to sit right there, third pew from the front, left side. Every Sunday. Rain, shine, or snow.
She had come to Minden during the Great Migration, left Mississippi in 1947 with two babies and a husband who'd found work at the mill. Left her mama and her sisters, left the church she'd grown up in, left everything familiar because staying meant watching her children grow up under Jim Crow's boot heel.
"We was refugees," she told me once. "Same as Mary and Joseph. We didn't have no angel come tell us to go in a dream, but the Lord spoke just as clear. He said, 'Get your babies out of here. Give them a chance.'"
She worked in white folks' kitchens for thirty years. Raised her children in a three-room house on the north side. Put both of them through college. Lived to see her granddaughter become a doctor.
"Took us to Egypt," she said, "but God was there too. Right there in that little house, right there in that kitchen where I was scrubbing floors—God was there. Teaching us, keeping us, preparing us for something better."
Mother Jenkins knew what it meant to flee in search of safety. She knew what it meant to build a life in a place that didn't fully welcome you. She knew about hidden years—years when nobody seemed to notice what she was building, what she was praying, what she was believing God for.
But she also knew what Joseph knew: that God guides one step at a time. That you take the next faithful action. That you trust even when you can't see the whole plan.
And she knew what Mary knew: that you hold onto the promise even in Egypt, even in exile, even when the world looks nothing like what the angels announced.
Church, we come from people like Mother Jenkins. We come from refugees and forced migrants, from people who survived what should have killed them, from people who built beauty in the margins, from people who kept faith in the hidden years.
We know this story not just because it's in Matthew's Gospel, but because it's in our bones.
V. Out of Egypt—And Still Coming Out
Matthew sees all of this—the flight, the exile, the return—as fulfillment of Scripture. He quotes Hosea: "Out of Egypt I called my son."
In its original context, that verse referred to Israel's exodus from slavery. But Matthew applies it to Jesus, suggesting that Christ embodies and fulfills Israel's entire journey.
Every exodus.
Every return from exile.
Every movement from bondage to freedom.
Every journey from death to life.
All of it finds its meaning in Christ, who walked these paths himself.
This is the pattern of salvation: God doesn't rescue us from our history but through it. Jesus doesn't avoid the painful paths humans walk—he walks them himself, transforming them from within.
Conclusion: Living Between Christmas and Epiphany
So what does this mean for us—for this family, this congregation, this community—as we close the Christmas season?
First, embrace the whole story. Don't sanitize Christmas. Don't keep only the pretty parts. The Gospel gives us angels and refugees, joy and grief, worship and exile. Our faith is strong enough to hold all of it together. Our history has taught us how to sing hallelujah and weep at the same time, how to worship in the valley, how to make a way out of no way.
Second, recognize Christ in the vulnerable. The refugee Christ calls us to see his face in all who flee violence, who seek shelter, who live in displacement. This is not abstract theology for us—this is family. When immigrants arrive in our community, when families flee violence, when children need shelter—we're looking at the Holy Family. Our response to them is our response to Christ himself.
Third, trust the hidden work. Mother Jenkins knew this. Our ancestors knew this. Not all significant spiritual movement is visible. Sometimes God's greatest work happens in the hidden years, in the ordinary rhythms, in the patient endurance. Christ sanctifies the waiting. He hallows the hidden. He is present in every "Egypt" season of your life.
Fourth, take the next faithful step. Like Joseph, like Mother Jenkins, like countless others in our community who've made a way when there seemed to be no way—you don't need the whole plan. Just take the next faithful step. Trust that the God who guided them will guide you too.
Finally, know that you come from survivors. You come from people who fled and made it. You come from people who built in the margins. You come from people who kept faith when every circumstance said to give up. That same strength, that same faith, that same God who brought them through—it's yours too.
The Christ child who fled to Africa, who grew up dismissed and overlooked, who knew violence from birth—he is ourChrist. He knows our story. He has walked our path.
And he leads us home.
Benediction
The flight to Egypt assures us: there is no place too dark, no displacement too disorienting, no exile too distant for Christ to be present.
As we pack away our nativity sets and return to ordinary time, we carry this truth with us: The infant who fled to Egypt grew up to say, "I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
The shadows contain a holy presence.
The exile leads home.
The refugee child became the world's Savior.
And so go in peace, knowing that wherever you walk this year, Christ has already been there—and he leads you home.
In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Closing Hymn
[The congregation stands]
Let us close by singing together hymn number 115 in your hymnal—"Guide Me, O Thou Great Jehovah."
Church, this is our song. It's been our song. From the bondage of Egypt to the wilderness wanderings, from the Great Migration to this very moment—this is the song of a people who know what it means to journey, to trust, to be led by a God who goes before us.
Sing it like you know it. Sing it like your ancestors sang it. Sing it for Mother Jenkins and all the saints who've gone before. Sing it for the journey ahead.
Guide me, O thou great Jehovah,
Pilgrim through this barren land;
I am weak, but thou art mighty;
Hold me with thy powerful hand.
Bread of heaven, bread of heaven,
Feed me till I want no more,
Feed me till I want no more.
Open now the crystal fountain,
Whence the healing stream doth flow;
Let the fire and cloudy pillar
Lead me all my journey through.
Strong deliverer, strong deliverer,
Be thou still my strength and shield,
Be thou still my strength and shield.
When I tread the verge of Jordan,
Bid my anxious fears subside;
Death of death, and hell's destruction,
Land me safe on Canaan's side.
Songs of praises, songs of praises
I will ever give to thee,
I will ever give to thee.
Amen and amen.
Go in peace. Christ has been there, and Christ will lead you home.
