The Flight into Egypt (Matthew 2)

     “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you.” From the Gospel according to Matthew, chapter 2, verse 13.

      In nomine, etc..

      Happy New Year!! I’ll keep my talk tonight very short, since we are all recovering from Christmas and New Year celebrations, and we’ll soon be celebrating Epiphany, Twelfth Night, and I know that on that occasion Fr J. will preach a rousing sermon as a fitting conclusion to the twelve days. So I’ll be brief.

       As we know, today’s Gospel story is usually titled The Flight into Egypt. We’ve all seen icons and paintings depicting this, with the Mother of God holding her baby and riding on a donkey, and Joseph leading them on their way. The reading is very pertinent in this time of mass migration and flight from violence and war and poverty. Today’s reading is put together from two sections separated by the story of the Slaughter of the Innocents. I would prefer the Innocents story to be included in the reading, since, as we know all too well these days, many innocents are being slaughtered in the Middle East and elsewhere, and hundreds of thousands, millions even, are on the move in efforts to escape.

     We realize, of course, that these migrations are not pretty, not elegant or refined like the best religious art depicting the Flight into Egypt. They are dangerous, desperate, unhealthy ventures, prone to hunger, thirst, disease, attacks from bandits, exploitation, and more. We can all think of variations and additions to this theme. Forced migration is a catastrophe for everyone involved, for the migrants and often also for people at the migrants’ destination.

      Forced migration has occurred in American history as well. The nineteenth century expulsions of Indians from their lands in the southeast, and their resettlement in the west, are well known. Large-scale voluntary migration has occurred as well, notably from the southern states to the cities of the north. We may think of the steady influx of millions of people into California, basically since the 1930s, as a mass migration, from other states and from countries to the south. Migration is a constant theme in history, and the story of the Flight into Egypt is an archetypal tale whose pattern can be applied to much of it.

     What is different in the Gospel story, is that the Holy Family has the option to return to their country of origin. Most modern migrants can’t return, or don’t want to; some are forced to return, as we know, but their number is very small compared to the total number of migrants. In any case, migration is usually a one-way trip, whose final destination is uncertain.

     The Gospel story doesn’t say anything about how the Holy Family were treated when they arrived in Egypt. Since there is no suggestion to the contrary, we may imagine that they were accepted, perhaps even welcomed. We don’t know that, of course, but it’s a reasonable supposition.

     At the time of the Nativity, the Holy Family were homeless, and they were homeless again in Egypt. How well this resonates with the contemporary situation! I think of the video clips on television, of people stranded at borders, camping out in the open, waiting for a chance to move on to something better. The Holy Family may have had experiences like this, or worse, since they had to cross the Sinai desert to reach Egypt.

     What can we learn from the story of the Flight into Egypt? And how can we apply what we learn to today’s situation?

     The Holy Family is God-protected, and led by God to safety, where His will for them can be fulfilled. But his will for them is being fulfilled, even in danger. There is no moment when God is absent. There is danger at both ends of the journey, at their point of origin and on their return to Israel. There probably is danger as they cross the Sinai, into an unknown situation. But in all situations, God is present. There are clear statements that prophecies are being fulfilled, that, no matter what the danger, ultimately there is no getting in the way of what God intends for the Holy Family.

     Every family on the move today in the migrations from the war-torn Middle East and elsewhere, is a holy family. They deserve to be seen as God–protected and God-led, as much as the Holy Family of the Gospel. It is our plain duty to do what we can to ease their situation, to welcome them and care for them. It is clear from the Judgment of the Nations in the 25^th chapter of Matthew’s Gospel, that when we welcome the stranger, we welcome Jesus himself. And if we don’t welcome them, we place ourselves under judgment. It is startling to see the uneasiness, even the outright hostility, in purportedly Christian lands, including our own, to migrants from Syria and so on. We Christians must not let ourselves be overtaken by this uneasiness, this hostility, and instead look at the situation with God’s eyes, so to speak, and act as He would act, and as our Lord would expect us to act.

     “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you.”

     In nomine, etc..