Scripture: Matthew 2:15 “This fulfilled what the Lord had spoken through the prophet: ‘I called my Son out of Egypt.’”

I didn’t anticipate that singing a carol at church would jolt me with surprise and pain, but that’s what happened my first Christmas in England. 

I’d left my home country and lived there for nearly a year after marrying an Englishman, and I found the adjustment challenging. I hadn’t reckoned on church being so hard, with the different customs unsettling me. 

And when from the piano wafted a strange (to me) tune for “Away in a Manger,” I blinked back my tears. I was happy to be married to my husband but sad to be away from the familiar.

Yet singing this particular carol was fitting during that unsettling time. After all, the first line details Jesus being born, “Away in the manger, no crib for a bed.” Not only was He born in humble circumstances, but as a toddler He also fled from Herod. 

God’s angel warned Joseph in a dream to leave: “Get up! Flee to Egypt with the child and his mother” (Matthew 2:13). Jesus was kept safe, but He knew what it felt like to be displaced. It was a feeling He experienced throughout His earthly life—away from His Father in heaven.

We don’t need to change locations to feel out of place; pangs of longing can come at any moment and at any place. When they do, we can turn to the One who suffered and grieved. His birth and His presence bring us hope and strength. — Amy Boucher Pye

Oh, did you know?

That the “magi” or wise men in the Christmas story were experts in science, mathematics, history and astronomy? They were important members of the royal court, and they came “from the east” (Matthew 2:1), possibly the city of Babylon, part of the Parthian empire. How stunning that gentiles travelled thousands of miles at great cost to come and worship a foreign king!