Isaiah 63:7-9 Psalm 148 Hebrews 2:10-18 Matthew 2:13-23
On Christmas Day I was asleep in bed soon after 7pm. When I woke up around 1am, I took the dog outside, looked up at the starry sky, and found myself thinking about people celebrating Christmas all around the world.
I thought about those who may have had the best day of their lives — the marriage proposal, the gift they never imagined receiving, the birth of a long-awaited child.
And I thought about those who had the worst day imaginable — people who lost someone they loved on Christmas Day, particularly suddenly or unexpectedly; people whose darkest truths were exposed; people who were frightened, alone, displaced, or far from home.
Standing under that vast sky that stretches over us all, thinking of them felt like prayer.
Because even here — even in this parish — some people had an unspeakably hard day, right alongside others whose day was almost perfect. And most of us, thankfully, found ourselves somewhere in between.
Life, as it turns out, does not separate joy and grief neatly.
They live side by side. Strange neighbours. Sharing the same sky.
And that is why this morning’s gospel feels so confronting.
There is barely time to take in the birth before fear arrives. A child is born — and almost immediately that child is hunted. In Matthew’s telling, there is no gentle fade-out after the angels sing. He does not protect Christmas from the world. He lets the mess rush straight in.
And behind it all, Isaiah has already been whispering for centuries:
“In all their distress, God was distressed.”
That line will not allow us a distant God. Whatever is happening here, God is not watching from a safe height.
Warned in a dream, the holy family flees to Egypt. And that detail matters.
Matthew is writing for a mostly Jewish audience, and Egypt is not neutral ground in Israel’s memory. Egypt is the land of slavery. Of crushed bodies. Of children killed by a fearful ruler. Egypt is where empire once showed its teeth. Some escaped. Many did not.
And yet here — Egypt becomes refuge.
That should unsettle us. Because it makes it abundantly clear that salvation history is not tidy or linear. The same place can wound and shelter. Fear and hope can occupy the same night. In the horrific account of the slaughter of the holy innocents, Matthew deliberately echoes Moses. A tyrant orders the killing of children. A child is spared. But the story twists.
Moses is saved from Egypt. Jesus is saved by Egypt. Saved in Egypt.
Oppression and refuge collapse into the same geography.
And this is not symbolic.
This is a real journey — hundreds of kilometres, weeks on foot, with a newborn and a young mother. A baby who feels the cold at night and the dusty heat in the middle of the day. A mother navigating fear, exhaustion, and breastfeeding without her own mother to help her. And an anxious dad, desperate to protect those in his care. Three people moving through danger and borderlands, their lives suddenly unrecognisable.
God does not wait for the world to become safe.
God does not tidy the mess first.
God goes straight into it.
The gospel is explicit: Jesus’ first journey as a refugee takes him along the Gaza road — a place where empire, fear, and displacement collide. Where people travel, longing for safety, and only some survive the journey. Sound familiar? Achingly familiar…
And suddenly it makes new sense of God laying in the straw and the feeding trough.
The King of Kings is born not into safety, but into exposure. Into vulnerability. Into danger. Glory and gore are not opposites in this kingdom — they belong together.
Not because the story has failed, but because this is how God chooses to be present.
So what we have, in this confronting co-existence is not a God above the rubble.
Not a God who arrives after the mess is cleaned up.
Not a God who rushes to fix and gloss over reality.
But a God found inside it — right in the middle of it, where the most vulnerable of God’s people are; the Word made flesh, dwelling among us right here;
walking dangerous roads, sharing fear and fragility, and resolutely choosing to remain.
And perhaps faith is this: trusting that God’s refusal to leave, determination to remain, means there is no place — in this world or in us — where God has not already gone. And God knows.
So tonight, step outside. Look up at the stars.
Remember that the same sky arches over joy and grief, birth and burial, celebration and terror — over refugee camps and safe homes alike.
Allow that looking up to become prayer.
Because the God we meet at Christmas is not far away.
God is with us. Within us. Under the same sky. In the same night.
Walking dangerous roads with the weary, the frightened, and the fleeing — in the first century and the twenty-first.
As you look up, remember: the sky is wide enough for joy and grief — and God is in it all.
Holy Adventures 