The Flight Into Shadows

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.