URC Daily Devotion 6 January 2026

St Matthew 2: 19 – 23
 
When Herod died, an angel of the Lord suddenly appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and said,  ‘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.’  Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel.  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.  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.’
 
Reflection
 
Today is the Feast of the Epiphany when, traditionally, the Magi are introduced into the birth narratives of Jesus: but have our Carol Services and Nativity Plays waited until today? Probably not. One of the delights of our Christmas celebrations is the attempt to draw together the accounts in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, perhaps noting that Mark and John have no such stories. This conflation prevents us from focusing on the differing accounts in Matthew and Luke and their priorities. I find the discrepancies reassuring – if the story of Jesus was a fiction those promoting it would never have allowed such differences in the record.
 
Luke gives us a detailed timeline for the events starting from Nazareth, blending in Mary’s visit to Elizabeth and Zechariah in Jerusalem and a few months later a journey to Bethlehem, just a few miles from the centre of Jerusalem, because of a census about which we have no other information.
 
Matthew starts in Bethlehem, assuming that this is where the holy family lived in an area ruled over by Herod the Great, who, having heard the message from the Magi, ordered the killing of all the under-threes in and around Bethlehem. Joseph took his family into exile in Egypt. The death of Herod in 4 BC did not bring security as his son Archelaus was no better – so guided by God Joseph, Mary and the young Jesus had to move on again, this time travelling north to a nondescript small town in the Galilean hill country; having grown up in Nazareth Jesus later moved on again, making his base in the hub-town of Capernaum.
 
We live at a time when countless people are on the move in the hope of finding safety and security – the people of Gaza, uprooted again and again by the Israeli government: refugees and economic migrants from the Middle East, Africa and Asia. Do those of us who can make our own choices about where we live appreciate what a blessing this is, and do we truly understand the realities of those forced to be on the move time and time again?
 
Prayer
 
Gracious God, so many of us can thank you for the safety and security of our homes: may we recognise this blessing. We hold before you those who have no such security but must move on because of military, political and economic forces over which they have no control: may we remember that they too are our neighbours: Amen.