Matthew 2:13-15,19-23 

After the wise men had left, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you, and escape into Egypt, and stay there until I tell you, because Herod intends to search for the child and do away with him.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, left that night for Egypt, where he stayed until Herod was dead. This was to fulfil what the Lord had spoken through the prophet:‘I called my son out of Egypt.’ 

After Herod’s death, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said, ‘Get up, take the child and his mother with you and go back to the land of Israel, for those who wanted to kill the child are dead.’ So Joseph got up and, taking the child and his mother with him, went back to the land of Israel. But when he learnt that Archelaus had succeeded his father Herod as ruler of Judaea he was afraid to go there, and being warned in a dream he left for the region of Galilee. There he settled in a town called Nazareth. In this way the words spoken through the prophets were to be fulfilled: ‘He will be called a Nazarene.’

 Reflection

Across New Zealand families are packing up and setting out on journeys. The annual holiday migration is taking place, dreamed of with joyful anticipation by many since returning home the previous January. 

In Syria families have been packing up and setting out on journeys for the last two years, not in a relaxed and joyful frame of mind, but in fear of their lives.  Some 2.3 million people have fled to surrounding countries and 6.5 million people are displaced within Syria, making this one of the biggest humanitarian crises for fifty years. 

Over Christmas families in South Sudan, the world’s newest nation, were also setting out on journeys, fleeing the ethnic civil war which has broken out in their homeland. 

While we may plan our holiday journeys and enjoy doing so, Joseph could not plan his family’s escape from Herod in the same degree of detail. He went to Egypt in response to the promptings of an angel in a dream, an arduous journey into insecurity and the unknown. He had his carpentry skills and the few possessions he could carry, and that was the basis on which he and Mary would build a life for themselves and Jesus in a foreign country.  

We make our holiday journeys in sunshine and warmth but the people of Syria are making their fear-filled journeys in the depth of a very harsh winter. 

If there are traffic back ups on the holiday routes in New Zealand, or the weather is less than perfect, or the mozzies seem uncontrollable, or the children are scratchy and tired - rather than responding with grumpiness or annoyance, let the families whose journeys are not chosen come to mind. They wait in endless queues for days at borders, they hide in fear in forests, they struggle to protect their children from the cold and illness, they live in fear of guns and explosions, and they have no home to return to. Pray to St Joseph for them and let the minor irritations of holiday journeys in New Zealand be absorbed and dissolved by prayer for those who need it so badly.