On One Holy Refugee
January 5, 2025
Traceymay Kalvaitis
Matthew chapter 2
After Jesus was born in Bethlehem in Judea, during the time of King Herod, Magi from the east came to Jerusalem and asked, “Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.”
When King Herod heard this he was disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him. When he had called together all the people’s chief priests and teachers of the law, he asked them where the Messiah was to be born. “In Bethlehem in Judea,” they replied, “for this is what the prophet has written: “‘But you, Bethlehem, in the land of Judah, are by no means least among the rulers of Judah; for out of you will come a ruler who will shepherd my people Israel.’”
Then Herod called the Magi secretly and found out from them the exact time the star had appeared. He sent them to Bethlehem and said, “Go and search carefully for the child. As soon as you find him, report to me, so that I too may go and worship him.”
After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh. And having been warned in a dream not to go back to Herod, they returned to their country by another route.
When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. “Get up,” he said, “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.” So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.
When Herod realized that he had been outwitted by the Magi, he was furious, and he gave orders to kill all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity who were two years old and under, in accordance with the time he had learned from the Magi.
After Herod died, an angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who were trying to take the child’s life are dead.” So he got up, took the child and his mother and went to the land of Israel.
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Today’s sermon is titled On One Holy Refugee.
The scene so often portrayed on Christmas cards and with creches of every size and material feature the Holy family in a state of serene bliss, bathed in starlight, and often with a warm glow all around. We need this vision at Christmas, in the darkest time of year, a vision to bring us promise and hope. I do not begrudge us this. But before we move on from Christmas and begin, once again, to consider the life and ministry of Jesus, it is important for us to come to terms with the conditions into which the child, who was to become the Christ, was born.
To establish the proper context, we go back to the second chapter of the Gospel of Luke, to the very first sentence of the birth narrative that reads, “In those days a decree went out from Emperor Augustus that all the world should be registered.” What we learn from this opening sentence is that one person, the Emperor of the vast Roman Empire, had the power to disrupt the lives of roughly 80 million people by requiring them to return to the place of their birth to be counted and taxed. *A census was not a one-time event; the Emperor ordered a census every 8 years or so around the time of the birth of Jesus. This is how the Empire raised money for the building of roads, the support of a massive military, and to keep the Emperor in the lifestyle he had come to demand.
Jesus was born in an occupied land, under authoritarian rule. It is written in John 1: 14, “The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us.” The infinite love of God came to humanity in the form of a tiny newborn babe, as vulnerable and as needy as any of us. What kind of welcome did the world offer? No room. No proper shelter. No supportive, caring community to help aid the transition. In fact, Jesus and the Holy family were met with life-threatening political violence and their only choice was to flee under cover of darkness to Egypt, a 40 mile journey to the southwest.
We are usually spared the details of this reality because the lectionary skips over the section of the second Chapter of Matthew subtitled “The Escape into Egypt” followed by another section subtitled “Massacre of the Infants.” We are usually allowed to bask in the afterglow of Christmas, and ponder what it means that God entered the world in such lowly estate. We are not tasked with having to face the real-life reality of living under a king who was granted full immunity for his actions, a king who could order the murder of all male children under the age of two, a king who answered to no one. This is the reality Jesus was born into. As a newborn, he was already a grave threat to the paradigm of established power, the rule of Empire, and the carefully guarded hierarchy of priesthood. Jesus was born outside the ranks of power and privilege; Jesus was born homeless and quickly joined the ranks of refugees seeking safety in a distant land.***
We have no records of Jesus’s early life in Egypt, nor do we know when the Holy family would have returned to their home. Scholars estimate that King Herod died when Jesus would have been about 4 or 5 years old.** We read that upon their return, the family did not settle in their homeland because it was King Herod’s son, Archelaus, that still ruled in the province of Judea, so Joseph took his family to Galilee, to a town called Nazareth, where they hoped they could raise their child in safety.
Mary and Joseph were not unlike the 123 million refugees in the world today. Displaced by violence, famine, and the threat of political persecution, 47 million of today’s refugees are children.**** Refugees are most often greeted with the same message the Holy family received in Bethlehem that fateful night, “There is no room.” What is a family to do when home is no longer safe? Where can a population turn when war pushes them out? The messages in the scriptures are clear. Yale Divinity School has compiled 51 pieces of scriptures from 4000 years of biblical literature that speak directly to treatment of strangers and aliens, scriptures like Lev 19:33–34: “When a stranger resides with you in your land, you shall not wrong him. The stranger who resides with you shall be to you as one of your citizens; you shall love him as yourself, for you were once strangers in the land of Egypt.”
In closing, I remind us that tomorrow, the sixth of January, marks the end of the 12 Holy Nights, the visit of the wise men, and the beginning of the season of Epiphany. Epiphany is a Greek word that means “showing forth.” We will begin to move through the Gospel of Luke, considering the various epiphanies that reveal to us the nature of God manifested in Jesus. As we move through this season of Epiphany, I invite us to make room in our hearts and minds for the teachings of Christ to enter in. So be it. Amen.
*https://www.biblestudytools.com/bible-study/topical-studies/why-was-there-a-roman-census-at-the-time-of-jesus-birth.html
**https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronology_of_Jesus#:~:text=In%20Josephus’%20account%2C%20Herod’s%20death,between%206%20and%204%20BC
***https://www.biblicalarchaeology.org/daily/people-cultures-in-the-bible/jesus-historical-jesus/jesus-was-a-refugee/
****https://data.unicef.org/topic/child-migration-and-displacement/displacement/#:~:text=Between%202010%20and%202023%2C%20the,refugees%20from%202018%20to%202023.
Pastoral Prayer
God of all, we are in need your grace. At any age, true security and peace are difficult for us to find. As a culture we strive to do more and more, and find we have less and less. Remind us to search for and hold fast to what holds the most meaning for us in our lives. Help us to trust in our wisdom and to take a stand for what we know we need. God of all, we need your grace. Help us to find the place within us where you reside. From this place, we are stronger and we see more clearly, because your strength and vision become ours. From this centered place within, we can live in gratitude, even as we are struggling; as the chaos rages around us, we can be a source of peace. Thank you, God, for the calm waters of our lives, and for the stormy seas, as well. Thank you for being our anchor when we need to be held, and our buoy when we need to rest. Turn our minds to prayer in all that we face, Lord, and remind us, please, that we are never alone. This we pray in Christ’s name. Amen.
Benediction
I leave you with these following words from Ephesians 3: 17-19: May Christ dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God.