For many years (before the arrival of our daughter and long before the birth of our granddaughter) it has been my custom to buy a children’s Christmas book for the season. I have a wide variety—some, like Tomie dePaola’s The Clown of God, make me cry every time the aged clown juggles for the last time and some, like The Nativity illustrated by Julie Vivas, make me laugh every time I see the series of illustrations showing a pregnant Mary trying to get on the donkey.

I have discovered that far too many children’s Christmas books are so sugary sweet they are dangerous to diabetics. And it’s not just children’s books. Although the lectionary, with its calendar of festivals and commemorations, marks the days after Christmas with Stephen, Deacon and Martyr (December 26), John, Apostle and Evangelist (December 27), and The Holy Innocents, Martyrs (December 28) these are days we seldom visit unless one happens to fall on a Sunday. Even then, we can be all too prone to ignore their real-world-ness in favor of continuing a happy celebration of Christmas (especially if we avoided singing Christmas carols during Advent!)

This year, the year of Matthew, Holy Innocents falls on the First Sunday of Christmas and the gospel texts are virtually the same. The gospel for Holy Innocents is Matthew 2:13-18 (focusing on the slaughter of the innocents) and on the first Sunday of Christmas it is expanded to continue through verse 23 (to include the flight into Egypt). In either case, this is the dark side of the nativity, telling of horrors we’d like to keep from our children and exclude from our Christmas pageants.

I once heard of a pastor who met with the Sunday School children to divide up roles in the Christmas pageant. One child, not at all a regular SS attendee, was proving particularly resistant to any of the traditional roles. She had a vague familiarity of the story and very definite ideas—Mary (too goody-goody), Joseph (too old), shepherds (too dirty), kings (too fancy) and no way was she going to be an angel with a tinsel halo. Finally, the pastor sent her home with a Bible, told her to read Luke 2 and Matthew 2, then come back with an idea of who she wanted to be. The girl returned the next week and announced “I want to be Herod’s hit man.” Stunned, the pastor protested, “That’s not in the story.” The girl replied, “Well, that Herod guy wanted to kill the baby and I don’t think he’d do it himself, so he must have hired a hit man.” With some reluctance, the pastor agreed and commented later, “The ‘hit man’ never came fully on stage, just loomed around the edges, always present. It was one of the most powerful experiences I ever had—a constant reminder of the fate of Jesus from the very beginning.”

Several years ago, in my search for a Christmas book, I found Refuge by Anne Booth & Sam Usher (ISBN 978-0-316-36172-9). Copyrighted in 2015, the book’s depiction of the Holy Family as refugees has lost none of its power—in fact it may have grown in power. Told in the voice of the donkey who carried Mary to Jerusalem and then Mary and Jesus to Egypt, it is a story both of danger and of the kindness of strangers. (It is a book suitable for children.)

Just this year I discovered a hymn in All Creation Sings, #1060, “Gentle Joseph Heard a Warning,” that sings a powerful story of refugees, not just the Holy Family, but today’s refugees. The hymn speaks of those who are targets of tyrants, those fleeing strife, seeking safety and peace. But the hymn goes on to pray for faith and courage when we move from place to place, to call us to see in every stranger refugees from Bethlehem, and to offer kindness and support.

We commonly think of refugees fleeing war and hunger, threats of violence and the destruction of infrastructure, “natural” disasters and poverty. An article, “The Dead Zones” by Vann R. Newkirk II in the December 2025 issue of The Atlantic is a powerful statement about climate-change acceleration that is reshaping concepts of seasonality and livability, impacting mostly the marginalized forgotten. Climate is already a part of the refugee story, but the coming climate chaos will, among other things, lead to more diverse and even higher numbers of climate refugees—and not just human beings.

Our warming climate has led to northward shifts in agricultural zones and habitats, leading to changing species distribution and extinction. Rivers and lakes are drying up. Glaciers are melting and flooding coastlines. Warm-water fish are migrating north and cold-water fish are declining. The composition of Minnesota forests is changing—over 70 per cent of northern tree species are shifting. Moose and birch trees and walleye are also climate refugees. Just as a with human refugees, we are called to take seriously our role in supporting these refugees.

In her newest book, A Beautiful Year, (St. Martin’s, ISBN 978-1-250-40988-1) Diana Butler Bass offers fresh perspectives on the seasons of the church year. She describes the liturgical calendar as “a strangely compelling story of anticipation, peace and justice, enlightenment, failure and death, rebirth, and living in love.” (p. 6) Although she does not provide a meditation on the Holy Innocents and the Flight into Egypt, these texts are surely among the most, if not the most, justice oriented of the season.

This Sunday, between the end of one calendar year and the beginning of another, it’s not a bad time to reflect on

            Where will we find refuge?

            For who and what in God’s creation will we be refuge?

            Who and what strangers will show us kindness?

            What kindnesses will we show what and who God has created?

This Sunday is also a good time to highlight the work of Global Refuge, (formerly Lutheran Immigration and Refugee Service), the largest faith-based national nonprofit exclusively dedicated to helping restore a sense of home to immigrants and refugees. Congregational resources are available at globalrefuge.org/blog/resources/congregational-resources.