According to United Nations figures, one person in a hundred and thirteen worldwide is today a refugee, a displaced person or an asylum seeker. It is a number that slips past us until we see individual faces in it. That statistic opens a sermon about the holy family’s flight into Egypt (Matthew 2). As an infant Jesus was the child of refugees fleeing a ruler who had ordered the boys of Bethlehem killed, and that is not a footnote to the Christmas story but part of it. Listen if you want to see Christmas from the point of view of those who have to run.
Jesus and the World
The World of Jesus
Jesus’ coming into the world is the most important event in history. As we read His story, we discover that He entered a world of very ordinary people. His ancestors had complicated life stories. His birth turned His family’s life upside down, caught the attention of foreign thinkers, and terrified the local authorities. Although distant, Jesus’ world is not very different from our own.
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