The Lectionary: The Second Sunday After Christmas
The immigrant Jesus
The Collect
O God, who wonderfully created, and yet more wonderfully restored, the dignity of human nature: Grant that we may share the divine life of him who humbled himself to share our humanity, your Son Jesus Christ; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Scripture
Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23
After the wise men had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, "Get up, 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." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, "Out of Egypt I have called my son."
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly 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 seeking the child's life are dead." Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, "He will be called a Nazorean."
The Message
It’s almost old hat, among liberal or progressive Christians, to emphasize the immigrant journey Mary, Joseph, and the infant Jesus take in this story in Matthew 2. If you run in these circles, you’ve heard this take on the flight to Egypt so many times, it almost loses its impact. We all know by now that Jesus and his family had to flee, across national borders, from persecution and violence in their home country. Tell us something we don’t know.
At risk of being derivative, then, I do want to dwell briefly on this aspect of this story then, because I think this is still an important thing to do, in America in 2025. We have an incoming presidential administration, just a little over a week from taking office, that staked its election strategy in large part on fears of immigrants and refugees coming to our borders. Remember the fear mongering ridiculousness that was Haitian migrants supposedly taking over Springfield, Ohio, and eating all the town’s pets?
One of the recurring social issues the Scriptures are clear on is the welcoming of the stranger to your land. Israel’s story begins with a story of immigration, as Abram leaves his family and seeks better opportunities elsewhere. It continues with a story of refugees, as the people of Israel flee oppression and slavery in Egypt and set out for a new home, albeit one already occupied by other peoples. Judaism took this immigrant status seriously; throughout the Torah, the command to care for the stranger - the traveler, the immigrant - among us is repeated. The prophets took up a similar call, with the implications becoming even more pressing for a Jewish people expelled from their land again by Babylon. At the time of Jesus, despite their return to Palestine, the people of Israel still held onto a sense of homelessness, and consequently, cherished a tradition that reminded them to make room for those among them who came from afar.
There will be many moments in the coming four years when leaders and politicians and loud voices will use the specter of people from places other than America as bludgeons and bogeymen to scare us towards a particular set of policies and decisions. I expect nothing less from political leaders; division and fear is a strong motivator, and in a democracy, a potent one. But, Christians should be vigilant against such calls, and should in those moments lean into our call to be not of the world, to be a force against the culture and the sins of the world. When our secular leaders want to divide us from one another by telling us those who were born elsewhere, or have different skin tones, or speak another language, or worship a different god are evil, are coming to take our stuff and our freedoms: that is when we, as Christians, should stand up and assert our religious liberty, by declaring that we will not be manipulated into hating the stranger or fearing the immigrant. It is at those moments we should declare our faith in Jesus Christ, the baby who fled as a refugee and became an immigrant in a far away land. We worship a stranger; let us love the strangers among us, fulfilling the direct, unambiguous commands of that Stranger that he gave us later in life:
“For I was stranger, and you welcomed Me.”