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In King County, there are babies sleeping in cars tonight. A sobering article in the Seattle Times this past week reveals what parents and shelter workers already know: a startling number of children under the age of 3 are homeless, sleeping in cars, tents, or shelters. It is an invisible epidemic. But invisible to whom?
In Washington, nearly 14,000 babies and toddlers are estimated to be experiencing homelessness, about 4% of all children under age three. Roughly a thousand of those live here in King County. That’s one in every twenty-five babies without a safe place to sleep. The youngest and most vulnerable are often the ones we don’t see. That could describe our city just as much as Bethlehem in the time of Jesus. When Jesus was a toddler, he became caught up in the crossfire of fear and power himself.
“When the wise men had departed, 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” (Matthew 2:13).
Imagine this with me. We have Herod, seated on a throne, surrounded by soldiers and sycophants, terrified of losing control. And in a cave or stable in Bethlehem, we have Joseph and Mary who are poor, tired, and obedient. They are tending to a newborn child who threatens no one but will redeem everyone.
God, love incarnate, enters the world in the infant Jesus and before he can even walk, his life is threatened. Mary and Joseph do what any parent would do. They protect their child. When Herod orders the execution of all the children in and around Bethlehem who are two years old or under, Mary and Joseph flee. It’s hard to imagine the horror, the fear, the panic. If your child’s life was threatened, wouldn’t you flee? I know I would. When the powerful are afraid, it’s always the powerless who pay.
Herod reigned for approximately 40 years, dying when Jesus was a young child. He was installed as king of Judea by Rome. Historians depict him as politically brilliant but intensely paranoid and often violent. 1st century Jewish historian Josephus describes numerous executions ordered by Herod, including his wife Mariamne I, three of his sons, his mother-in-law Alexandra, and many members of the Sanhedrin.
Like so many rulers throughout history, Herod had abundant wealth, but it couldn’t buy him peace. He had power, but was still racked by anxiety and insecurity. His violence and cruelty serve to expose his emptiness. He was a man so spiritually impoverished that he was willing to kill children to keep control. But we know earthly power that preys on the weak is not strength; it is terror dressed up as authority.
If we’re being honest, we know we still live in systems that prize control more than compassion. The gospel names this sickness clearly. Look at what is happening in this text. The love of God in the infant Jesus threatens Herod’s control. Out of fear, Herod chooses domination over trust and when he does that, his soul becomes bankrupt. He sells out and capitulates to violence.
Let’s step back for a moment. How does God respond to Herod? Not Mary and Joseph, but God. God’s answer to Herod isn’t another army or a counter attack. God doesn’t answer Herod’s violence with more violence. God responds with presence.
Picture it: the night is silent, the air heavy with danger. While soldiers sharpen their swords in the palace, heaven sends a whisper into a dream. No thunder, no earthquake, no spectacle, just a voice in the dark calling a father by name.
This is the same angel who once spoke hope into Joseph’s confusion, “Do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife.” Now that same messenger returns, steady and familiar, to guide him again: “Get up. Take the child. Go.”
The Word that spoke galaxies into being now moves through a whisper, a warning, a father’s obedience. Real power doesn’t crush; it shelters. Real power doesn’t shout; it listens and responds. Real power moves quietly; through tenderness, through trust, through the courage to protect what is fragile and holy.
Doyt talked about this in his Christmas Eve sermon when he said, “The Kingdom of God does not arrive in a rush. It arrives with patience. Slowly. Quietly. Vulnerably…. The way of God is not a “go fast” model. It’s a “go far” together model, rooted in relationship, rather than domination, in love, rather than control.”
This is what happens when Joseph and Mary take Jesus to Egypt. The same place that was once the place of slavery, becomes sanctuary. They go to Alexandria, the apex of intellectual learning at the time where Jesus grows, learns, and studies alongside his parents. In Egypt, they find community, safety, and support.
Have you noticed God keeps writing salvation stories into unexpected settings? A manger instead of a palace. A refugee road instead of a royal procession. God’s power shelters life, while human fear destroys it.
In this story, the evangelist quotes the prophet Jeremiah (31:5) when he writes, “A voice was heard in Ramah, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled because they are no more.” This quote frames the massacre as more than its own atrocity. It places the massacre as part of Israel’s larger story of exile and hope. “Rachel weeping for her children….”
Think of all the mothers throughout history who have wept for their children. The mother outside my neighborhood Safeway with her two small children, asking for food and diapers. My impulse is to rush past, but that sorrow is holy. The tears of the powerless are sacred protest against the lie that violence or suffering wins.
How might we resist Herod’s fear in our world? If we accept homelessness as a source of shame instead of injustice, we become spiritually impoverished ourselves. What would it look like if we were to practice God’s presence, seeing what society chooses not to see? God entrusted Mary and Joseph with his only Son and they kept him from danger. Likewise, God entrusts us, ordinary people, to carry the holy and the vulnerable out of danger.
We become the angels now; the quiet messengers of God’s protection, sent to shine light where cruelty hides. God was born into our broken world, full of violence and fear, and there is no place beneath God’s concern. Jesus too lived without shelter, on the run from the authorities who wished him dead. That same Christ sleeps tonight wherever loves shelters life, especially among the vulnerable and weak. Christ still flees tyranny. Christ still hides in borrowed rooms. Christ still survives through those who choose compassion over control. We are the angels who keep the light moving; and every time we protect the vulnerable, Herod loses again.