Our online Advent Calendar was to herald Christmas Day with the final word Alleluia! and its images but a misunderstanding meant that the Christmas card had some of those photos attached instead and Alleluia! didn’t arrive. There was some confusion as Advent began on November 30th and so the 25th image was on Christmas Eve, when appropriately Birth/New Beginnings would have lead to Alleluia! on the Day itself, 26. Hopefully, Alleluia! was said or sung at some point anyway!
Today’s focus is very far from Alleluia! as it focuses on the Flight into Egypt and the Massacre of the Innocents, when baby boys under two years of age were killed on King Herod’s orders. Estimates vary as to whether the children involved numbered ten or twelve through to thousands as Herod tried to get rid of the child called the King of the Jews by the wise men from the East, who had presumed he would be born in a palace and so came to Herod seeking him. Herod’s jealousy, which caused the bloodshed of those tiny victims and the anguish of their families, was actually in vain as Jesus and his family had already fled, with Joseph being warned in a dream that they must leave and take refuge in Egypt.
From the time of Moses Egypt had been seen as a place of oppression for Jews, who were taken into slavery there, but it now became a sanctuary for the Messiah, who remains for two years until the death of Herod. Egypt was beyond Herod’s power but it and Judea were part of the Roman Empire and linked by a coastal road which facilitated travel between them. The time the Holy Family spent there fulfils a prophecy in Hosea 11:1 quoted by Matthew: ‘Out of Egypt have I called my son,’ as does a second verse from Jeremiah 31:15, ‘A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children.’ It also establishes links between Moses, who delivers the Jews to freedom, and Jesus who, after being a refugee, can return to set his people free later on. In Joseph’s second dream, he is told that Herod has died and that it’s safe for the family to return but, when Joseph learns that cruel Archelaus has succeeded his father, he is afraid to return to Judea and a third dream tells him to go to Galilee. In making Nazareth their home, Matthew suggests that a third prophecy has been fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazarene’, though no direct Old Testament quote supports this. What is significant is that Joseph’s three dreams and their messages enable survival and guidance at a time of danger – Jesus survives where so many others did not due to Herod’s insecurity and political machinations.
Matthew is the only Gospel writer to include the Flight into Egypt, possibly because he refers to Jesus later as the New Moses. However, it’s important to know that, in our own days of controversy over refugees and immigrants, Jesus was himself in need of refuge and was caught up in politics, violence and displacement then as are so many now. Amidst the cosy and familiar stories of angels, shepherds and the manger are these darker accounts of persecution, death and flight – all part of the same Christmas story and of what God’s son and his family endured. Perhaps we shouldn’t be too surprised that this is part of our world and story today, too?
With my prayers,
Christine, Priest Guardian.