In the flight to Egypt we see the Holy Family as refugees, and once we have seen the Holy Family as refugees fleeing a violent Middle East despot, it must forever influence how Christians view modern-day refugees in similar situations—in the eyes of God, they too are a kind of holy family. These acts of prophetic imagination (to borrow a phrase from Walter Brueggemann) are necessary for those who would read the biblical Christmas story with contemporary relevance and not just romanticized sentimentality.
