Living Like a Refugee

Matthew 2:13-15a

Now after they 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.

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You don't ha-ave to live like a refugee
(Don't have to live like a refugee)

"Refugee" by Tom Petty and Mike Campbell recorded by Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers on the "Damn the Torpedoes" album.

The Christmas Story is a wonderful and glorious tale. And in Matthew's gospel it doesn't last very long, it begins in the middle of chapter one and ends in the middle of chapter two. That's all. The Christmas Story ends abruptly with Joseph's dream from the angel of the Lord warning him to  “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt.” How long? God only knows... literally God only knows.

Of course, in the first century as well as in the twenty-second Egypt is not a good place for a Jew on the run. He would go to a place where he was not welcome. This allowed me to think about the racial and ethnic lines that were crossed with the simple words “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."

The Holy Family had to live like a refugee. In a way, we are like refugees. It is said that we are not citizens of this world. We are citizens of heaven. In a way, that makes us refugees. We are refugees in a world that is not ours. Our hope is that our Lord Jesus Christ also lived in this world. He lived like a refugee. He lived like a refugee in Egypt and like a refugee in this world in general. There is no where that we can go that Christ hasn't also gone. That is truly our hope.

Because Christ has lived like a refugee, we don't have to live like a refugee, because we know where our home is.