Matthew 2:13-23

We love a Christmas story that soothes, slows, and settles us down. Like the ones on the Hallmark Channel. Where people come back home, fall in love, get engaged in the snow, start a small business on the town square, and live happily ever after. Nothing too disruptive. Nothing that can’t be resolved in ninety minutes with a hot cup of cocoa and a change of heart.

And we love the nativity. Of course, I am talking about the kind that’s stationed inside the mall near JCPenney’s. A baby in a manger who doesn’t cry, need a diaper, or make a fuss. A very calm Mary and Joseph. Shepherds kneeling quietly. Magi standing in their place, holding their gifts. A silent night that doesn’t disturb anyone’s politics, profits, or comfort.

The problem is that that looks and sounds nothing like the scene in Matthew’s gospel.

Before wonder has time to settle in, an angel appears to Joseph in a dream and says: “Get up! Take the child and flee to Egypt.” Not relocate. Not travel. Not go on a spiritual retreat. As soon as Love takes on flesh, Love is forced to flee.

Matthew reminds us today that Christmas is a story on the run. The Prince of Peace has been born into a world ruled by selfish power and violent fear and the Word Made Flesh is forced to flee as a refugee.

Herod receives the news that a child has been born who might upend his throne. So, he does what all insecure authoritarians and their sycophants do. Herod confuses his own survival with the will of God. To protect his reign, he weaponizes fear and sacrifices the innocent.

And so, the story of Christmas becomes, not a peaceful hallmark story of personal salvation and happily-ever-after, but a frantic, suspenseful thriller of border crossings, desperate decisions, and parents doing whatever it takes to keep their child alive.

This is real Christmas. This is Christmas in a world where the powerful will do anything to stay powerful. And this is the Christmas they want us to forget.

Now, it’s probably not too sinful to sit down and watch that Hallmark movie or to stop by the nativity scene at the mall—

as long as we understand that there’s no way the holy family gathered around that manger Bethlehem would pass today’s background checks for moral or financial worthiness—

and as long as we understand Jesus was born a poor, brown-skinned, Jewish Palestinian into a world where governments rip apart families like his.

And we must never be fooled whenever we hear the powerful claim that they are the “protectors of Christmas,” the reason people are saying “Merry Christmas” again.

Because, in the real world, the powerful don’t protect Christmas. They fear it. So, they seek to capture it. Control it. Own it. And then tame it. Change it into something that looks nothing like Matthew 2. Because when Christmas is taken seriously, it is a threat to every system built on fear and domination.

The spirit of Christmas stirred the abolitionists to challenge slavery. It sustained the faith of enslaved people who believed God was indeed on the side of the oppressed. And it fueled movements that dared to imagine freedom in a culture structured to deny it. It unsettled Jim Crow, exposed segregation as sin, and inspired ordinary people to stand up to extraordinary injustice.

That is why Matthew reaches back to the prophet Hosea and writes, “Out of Egypt I have called my son.” Hosea was speaking of God calling Israel out of Egypt, out of slavery, out from under the grip of empire.

Like the Israelites, God does not shield Jesus from the oppression of a tyrannical government. But there, in Egypt, Jesus experiences the same paths of displacement, oppression, grief, and danger that marked the lives of the enslaved Hebrews…and so many immigrants and refugees today.

Which means that there is no way we can preach this text honestly without asking hard questions about our own moment in history:

when children are still caught in the crossfire of political fear;

when families are still fleeing violence, famine, and oppression;

when the powerful are shameless in their lies to justify cruelty;

and when religious language is still being used to bless policies that terrorizes families.

Herod is not just a character in the Bible.
Herod is a historical pattern.

Herod is a scourge on this world that shows up any time leaders choose domination over compassion; any time power protects itself by scapegoating the vulnerable; any time the lives of children become collateral damage in the name of “order” or “security.”

And sadly, because Herod is a pattern, so is the weeping of Rachel. Matthew recalls words spoken by prophet Jeremiah: “A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children.”

Rachel weeps today in refugee camps. She weeps in detention centers. She weeps in neighborhoods and schools shattered by gun violence. She weeps in hospitals, on city streets, and at graves that should never have been dug.

And notice that Matthew doesn’t soften her grief: “wailing and loud lamentation.” Matthew does not explain it away. He does not say: “Things can happen.”

He lets Rachel weep, honestly, painfully, bitterly.

Because Christmas never denies suffering. Christmas names suffering. And then, it refuses to let suffering have the last word. The Herods of the world die. Empires fall. Fear cannot and does not win forever. The child survives. And that is the quiet defiance of Christmas.

Jesus grows up not sheltered from the world’s cruelty, but shaped by survival, displacement, and resistance.

Which may explain why, when he begins his ministry, he stands with the poor, the sick, the criminalized, and the cast out. Why he speaks so clearly about unjust power. Why he refuses to confuse God with empire, faith with nationalism, and love with judgment.

The story of Jesus is that God shows up not in Herod’s palace, but on the margins. Not with people claiming to be greatest, but with those considered to be the least. Not in an army, but in a vulnerable child.

And if we want to be faithful to this Christmas story, the question is not: “Do we believe in Christmas?” The real question is: “Where do we stand in Christmas?”

Do we stand with fear? Or with the families trying to survive it?
Do we stand to protect power? Or do we stand to protect children?

Do we sing Joy to the World, while only caring about joy in our little corner of the world?

Do we believe the good news of Christmas?

Not that God came once upon a time in the little town of Bethlehem. But the good news that God is still showing up, in the little town of Bedford, Boonesboro, Forest, Lynchburg, Madison Heights, Hurt, Appomattox, and Roanoke—in every town: through every act of courage; every refusal to dehumanize; every welcome offered to a stranger; every challenge to unjust power; every policy resisted that harms the innocent; every stand taken with the vulnerable; and every insistence that love is stronger than fear, and love always wins.

So, this Christmas, let’s not be afraid to tell the whole story.
Not just the angels, but the anguish.

Not just the birth, but the violence it provoked from the powerful.

Not just the joy, but the justice that joy requires.

Not just the glory, but the calling of Christmas, which is: if God is born among the vulnerable, then our faith is measured by how we treat them!

This is not Hallmark or shopping mall Christmas. This is real Christmas. This is Christmas on the run. This is Emmanuel, God with us, even here.

Thanks be to God.