Patrick Comerford
On the fourth day of Christmas my true love sent to me … ‘Four Calling Birds, three French hens, two turtle doves, and a partridge in a pear tree’.
This is the fourth day of Christmas and today in the church calendar is the First Sunday of Christmas (Christmas I, (28 December 2025), and later this morning I hope to take part in the Parish Eucharist in Saint Mary and Saint Giles Church, Stony Stratford.
Before today begins, I am taking some quiet time this morning to give thanks, to reflect, to pray and to read in these ways:
1, today’s Gospel reading;
2, a short reflection;
3, a prayer from the USPG prayer diary;
4, the Collects and Post-Communion prayer of the day.
Matthew 2: 13–23 (NRSVA):
13 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.’ 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt, 15 and remained there until the death of Herod. This was to fulfil what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I have called my son.’
16 When Herod saw that he had been tricked by the wise men, he was infuriated, and he sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under, according to the time that he had learned from the wise men. 17 Then was fulfilled what had been spoken through the prophet Jeremiah:
18 ‘A voice was heard in Ramah,
wailing and loud lamentation,
Rachel weeping for her children;
she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.’
19 When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, 20 ‘Get up, take the child and his mother, and go to the land of Israel, for those who were seeking the child’s life are dead.’ 21 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. 22 But when he heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there. And after being warned in a dream, he went away to the district of Galilee. 23 There he made his home in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be fulfilled, ‘He will be called a Nazorean.’
‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879), by Luc-Olivier MersonThis Sunday can be something of an anti-climax for many people, after all that has happened on Christmas Day and the day after, Saint Stephen’s Day.
The ‘four calling birds’ on the fourth day of Christmas are said to represent the four Gospel writers. But Saint Matthew is alone among the Gospel writers in recounting the flight into Egypt (Matthew 2: 13-23). We hear this morning how Saint Joseph learns after the visit of the Magi that King Herod the Great is plotting to murder the infants in his kingdom.
Herod the Great fears the new-born ‘King of the Jews’ that the Magi speak about is going to be a threat to his throne, and so he sets out to kill all innocent children under the age of two.
The wise men from the East (verse 1) came to Herod the Great asking ‘Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?’ (verse 2). Now They have visited the child with Mary (verse 11), paid him homage, and offered him gifts. They have now returned to their own country (verse 12).
In yet another dream, an angel warns Saint Joseph of the plot, and so he takes the Virgin Mary and the Christ Child with him, and the family flee to Egypt (verse 13).
Egypt was to the west or south-west of Bethlehem a logical place to seek refuge: it was outside Herod’s kingdom, but both Egypt and Palestine were part of the Roman Empire, linked by a coastal road known as ‘the way of the sea.’ After a time, the Holy Family returns from exile in Egypt and settles in Galilee.
In this account, Matthew 2: 15 cites Hosea (11: 1) as prophetically fulfilled in their return from Egypt: ‘… and out of Egypt I called my son.’
We have yet to read about the Circumcision and Naming of Christ (1 January) and the Epiphany (6 January), so this Gospel reading, with its story of Saint Joseph’s dream and the Flight into Egypt, may seem out of sequence.
This story can be read as a comparison with either Moses leading the people out of exile in Egypt or with the forced exile for many generations in Babylon. In either case, Christ is seen, from the beginning of his life, as leading people out of exile and slavery.
The story is often read as the final episode in the Nativity narrative, and is associated with this season of Epiphany. Perhaps this reading, with its events and its geographical setting, may present many parishes with an interesting opportunity to consider the plight of refugees, particularly in North Africa, the Middle East and the Mediterranean.
Or, perhaps, given the present political climate in the US, Russia and many other countries, the story could provide an interesting opening to discuss the policies and whims of capricious, demanding and despotic rulers.
Herod has all the infants in the area around Bethlehem area killed because he fears that Jesus may succeed to his throne, rather than one of his own sons (verse 16). The Gospel then recalls the Prophet Jeremiah (verse 18) and how Rachel weeps over the exile of her sons, and then (verse 20).
In Joseph’s next dream, the angel’s message recalls God’s words to Moses as he sends him to lead Israel out of bondage. In this way, Christ is presented as the new leader of God’s people.
Herod the Great’s son, Herod Antipas, ruled Galilee benignly, compared to how his brother Herod Archelaus ruled in Judea. Some commentators suggest Joseph may also have chosen to make his home in Nazareth (verse 23) because he could find work at Sepphoris, the city being rebuilt 6 km nearby.
The closing quotation is not found in the Hebrew Scriptures. Perhaps Saint Matthew is misquoting Isaiah, who says ‘a branch [nezer] shall grow’ out of Jesse’s ‘roots’ (see Isaiah 11: 1) – David was Jesse’s son.
The painting ‘Rest on the Flight into Egypt’ (1879) by Luc-Olivier Merson (1846–1920) is in the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston. It is in Oil on Canvas and measures 71.8 cm x 128.3 cm. It was bought in Paris by George Golding Kennedy (1841-1918) of Boston, who bequeathed it to museum in 1918.
The scene Merson depicts is haunting and full of fatigue. An exhausted Saint Joseph is asleep, perhaps suffering from mental and physical exhaustion in his flight from danger with his wife and her baby, stretched out on the desert sands as he tries to doze off.
The Virgin Mary is resting in the arms of the Sphinx, cradling the Christ Child, both unable to sleep because of their plight, because of what they have witnessed.
The Christ Child seems to light up the whole scene but is beginning his life in exile, in homelessness, a refugee, an immigrant, a stranger in a strange land.
The donkey – that little donkey who becomes a domestic pet in children’s carols – is worn out from the journey from Bethlehem, and scavenges in the dark in the desert soil, seeking what few blades of grass he can find to eat.
By the time the 12 days of Christmas have passed, most of us will be tired of the seven swans a-swimming, the six geese a-laying … and only too happy to get back to work, and to begin looking at summer holiday brochures.
However, this is not what it is like for the Holy Family in the days after their first Christmas. That first Christmas was not one filled with tedium and boredom. Their first Christmas was the very opposite to our comfortable holiday season in Northern Europe.
This painting by Merson reminds us of the stark reality of the hardship and deprivation suffered by a family on the run. Who among us would swap the tedium and boredom of the coming week for that time Mary and Joseph had with the Christ Child?
Harried by Herod’s hunters, they barely escaped a maniacal plot for mass murder, and ended up in exile where their ancestors had once been slaves, seeking succour and refuge with the Jewish diaspora by the Nile and the Pyramids.
The Flight into Egypt was no bargain package holiday. Rather, it was an ordeal that inspired artists throughout the centuries. It has been painted by Fra Angelico, Giotto, Carpaccio, Durer, Claude Lorrain, Tintoretto, Barbieri, Tiepolo … the great Dutch and Italian masters, indeed most of the great Western artists.
Saint Matthew’s unique account of this event in this reading had many resonances for his first readers: it is a powerful restructuring of the story of Joseph forced into exile in Egypt because of the evil plots hatched against him. And the exodus from Egypt in later, safer, days, would point anew towards redemption from slavery and sin and offer the hope of imminent salvation.
Later legends surrounding the Flight into Egypt include the family hiding in a cave and being protected by a spider’s web, the beasts of the desert bowing in homage to the Christ Child, an encounter with two thieves who would be crucified beside Christ on the Cross on Calvary, and palm trees bending in reverence as Mary and Joseph passed by with the Child Jesus.
Legend says that when they found shelter on the banks of Nile, the Holy Family lived in an area known as Babylon in Egypt, where there was a long, continuous Jewish presence. Although those stories of flight and exile are unique to Saint Matthew’s Gospel, they also appear in the Quran, and are part of the way Muslims come to own the story of Jesus within their own religious traditions.
On various visits to Egypt, I was aware that the stories of the flight into Egypt, the refuge, the welcome and the asylum offered to the Holy Family there, are stories shared and definitive for all Egyptians, including Muslims, the large Christian community, and the dwindling but ancient Jewish community.
Many shrines and churches are claimed as places where the family rested or dwelt, none more so than Abu Sergha or the Church of Saint Sergius and Saint Bacchus, one of the oldest Coptic Churches in Egypt, and the place where many Patriarchs of Alexandria or Coptic Popes were elected.
Every Egyptian today – Jew, Christian and Muslim – identifies with both the Holy Family and those who offered them asylum. But who would we here identify with if you and I were hearing this story of mass murder and enforced exile for the first time?
Would I have been among the innkeepers who first refused them a welcome at my inn or hostel in Bethlehem?
Would I have been willing to work with the political apparatus around the Herod of my day, holding onto power and privilege, inspiring fear rather than respect and loyalty, no matter who had to be trampled on, no matter who suffered, no matter how the innocent would be counted among the victims?
Would I have had the courage of the wandering Magi, not only to seek truth, even if it is outside my own area of learning and knowledge, but also willing to take the risks involved in refusing to respect the immoral demands of those holding the reins of power when they are lawful but patently immoral?
When was I last like Joseph, realising that God’s promptings are not idle dreams but that they demand discipleship and action, even if this puts my personal security at risk?
When did I listen to the voice of today’s Rachels, the weeping mothers and widows, whether at a local level it was listening to the grief of someone who has lost a dear family member at Christmas time, or at a global level it was listening to those who are weeping in grief in Ukraine and Russia, in Gaza, Israel and Palestine, in Afghanistan or Sudan, or facing hostility from local communities asked to host asylum seekers and refugees in hotels and shelters?
The story of Herod’s jealous plot and of a family fleeing in search of refuge continues to have radical relevance today.
We cannot be open to the plight of the fleeing Holy Family unless we are open to the plight and needs of the families who have come to live among us today – whatever their political, social or ethnic backgrounds may be.
We cannot understand the plight of families who saw the hope of future generations sacrificed in the interest of political greed unless we too are willing to stand against political and personal greed today.
We cannot praise the disobedience of the Magi unless we are willing to say regularly that morality in politics must overrule the personal interests, gain and profit of those who hold office.
We cannot rejoice in the welcome the Egyptians gave to Mary, Joseph and the Baby Jesus unless we too are willing to rejoice in every initiative, every stage in the process of dialogue that brings Jews, Christians and Muslims together in our own country.
We cannot pity the plight of that family in exile unless we can acknowledge the needs of the new families living among us today.
Christmas is the story of the true insider who becomes a real outsider in order that we who in our reality are outsiders may truly become insiders.
Today’s Gospel story is an unsettling story. Perhaps it’s a story that reminds us how we can make Christmas too easy, too comfortable.
This is not a ‘family-friendly’ story, if you think of what happens to the Holy Family, to Joseph, Mary and Jesus. The Christmas story is not complete without tyrannical rulers, mass murder, refugees and families fleeing injustice.
Perhaps the Christmas story is a reminder to us that everywhere today we find oppressive rulers, the denial of human rights, child abuse, and the creation of mass numbers of refugees there is something very wrong, there is a denial of the Kingdom of God that Christ has come into the world to announce, that the state of our world today is a clear denial of the message of Christmas, of what Christmas is all about.
That’s the dark and bitter side of Christmas.
Today’s Prayers (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I):
The theme this week (28 December 2025 to 3 January 2026) in Pray with the World Church, the prayer diary of the Anglican mission agency USPG (United Society Partners in the Gospel), is ‘Mother and Child’ (pp 14-15). This theme is introduced today with a Programme Update by Imran Englefield, Individual Giving Manager, USPG, who writes:
‘As we celebrate the coming of Christ, I think of the mothers I met in Tanzania and the hope I saw in their eyes. None more so than Alice, a young mother I met at Mvumi Hospital.
‘Alice and her husband both live with HIV. After losing a child and suffering several miscarriages, she feared she would never hold a healthy baby again. Through the Prevention of Mother-to-Child Transmission programme, she received treatment, counselling, and care throughout her pregnancy.
‘When I met her, she was sitting quietly on her hospital bed, holding her one-year-old son. They had come in for a regular check-up. With deep emotion, she said, “I never thought I would see my child so healthy and strong. This hospital has given us hope and a reason to keep going.”
‘In the waiting rooms, other mothers, including many who were expecting, waited for check-ups, chatting softly and comforting one another. It was lovely to witness. I remember thinking that this is what partnership truly looks like; a church and hospital working hand in hand, creating a community and space for mothers to bring healthy children into the world.
‘It is a powerful reminder that the story of new life we celebrate at Christmas is still unfolding every day at Mvumi Hospital.’
The USPG Prayer Diary today (Sunday 28 December 2025, Christmas I) invites us to pray as we read and meditate on Matthew 2: 13-23.
The Collect:
Almighty God,
who wonderfully created us in your own image
and yet more wonderfully restored us
through your Son Jesus Christ:
grant that, as he came to share in our humanity,
so we may share the life of his divinity;
who is alive and reigns with you,
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God, now and for ever.
The Post-Communion Prayer:
Heavenly Father,
whose blessed Son shared at Nazareth the life of an earthly home:
help your Church to live as one family,
united in love and obedience,
and bring us all at last to our home in heaven;
through Jesus Christ our Lord.
Additional Collect:
God in Trinity,
eternal unity of perfect love:
gather the nations to be one family,
and draw us into your holy life
through the birth of Emmanuel,
our Lord Jesus Christ.
Yesterday’s Reflections
Continued Tomorrow
Scripture quotations are from the New Revised Standard Version Bible: Anglicised Edition copyright © 1989, 1995 National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved worldwide. http://nrsvbibles.org
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