First Sunday after Christmas Day

Commentary on Matthew 2:13-23 Working Preacher

Reads Herod's slaughter of the innocents against the Exodus story, arguing the preacher's job is to name human responsibility for the violence rather than soften it, while following Joseph's four dreams as the thread that carries the holy family to Egypt and home again.

Matthew 2:13-23 Commentary Center for Excellence in Preaching

Reformed preaching-craft notes on the flight to Egypt that work through how to preach Herod's massacre honestly on a low-attendance Sunday without either sanitizing it or overwhelming the congregation.

The Holy Family of Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, Cycle A Loyola Press, Sunday Connection

Catholic catechetical reading of the same Matthew 2:13-15, 19-23 text (as the Holy Family Sunday Gospel) that draws the parallel to Moses's escape in Exodus and notes the lectionary deliberately omits the massacre verses, assigning them instead to the Feast of the Holy Innocents.

What Happens After the Miracle? The Episcopal Church, Sermons That Work

Anglican preaching resource for this exact Christmas 1 date arguing that the flight to Egypt is what discipleship looks like after the manger's wonder fades into ordinary, dangerous life.

Matthew 2 Bible Commentary Enduring Word (David Guzik)

Verse-by-verse evangelical study notes on the whole chapter, walking through the magi, the dreams, Herod's rage, and the geography of the family's route to Egypt and then Nazareth.

Matthew 2 Resources Precept Austin

A compiled index of classic and modern verse-by-verse commentaries on Matthew 2, letting a preacher cross-check several older scholars' readings of the flight to Egypt in one place.

Matthew 2:13 Commentaries BibleHub (classic commentaries)

Aggregates public-domain 19th- and early-20th-century commentaries (Ellicott, Pulpit, Cambridge Bible, etc.) verse by verse through the flight to Egypt.

Matthew 1-13 BibleProject

Animated overview tracing Matthew's literary design across chapters 1-13, presenting Jesus as a new Moses who relives Israel's story, which is the frame Matthew 2 itself is building (Egypt, exile, return).

Matthew 2:13 Interlinear BibleHub (Interlinear)

Greek text with morphology and Strong's numbers for the verse where the angel warns Joseph, useful for word-level study of the flight command.

Catena on Matthew 2 Catena Bible

Chain of patristic comments (Chrysostom, Jerome, and others) on the magi, the flight, and the return, showing how the early church read Herod's violence typologically against Pharaoh and Moses.

In Their Distress Journey with Jesus

Opens with the photo of Alan Kurdi, the Syrian toddler drowned as a refugee, to argue that Matthew 2:13-23 is fundamentally a refugee story and that the church's Christmas child was a displaced person before he was anything else.

First Sunday after Christmas Day, Year A: Lectionary Planning Notes and Liturgical Resources UMC Discipleship Ministries

Per-Sunday worship-planning page with prayers, litanies, and preaching notes keyed to this exact Sunday's four RCL readings, including the flight to Egypt.

Brainwave 331 - First Sunday of Christmas Working Preacher, Sermon Brainwave

Episode description confirms it covers exactly this Sunday's Year A texts (Matthew 2:13-23, Isaiah 63:7-9, Psalm 148, Hebrews 2:10-18); three Lutheran preaching professors talk through how to handle Herod's violence in the pulpit right after Christmas.

Year A - Christmas - First Sunday after Christmas Day Vanderbilt Divinity Library, Art in the Christian Tradition

Curated public-domain artworks keyed to this Sunday's readings, including flight-into-Egypt and holy-innocents paintings, each with a scholarly commentary on the image.

Matthew 2:13-23 The Text This Week

Textweek's link-farm page for this exact pericope, aggregating dozens of external commentary, art, and sermon links a preacher can work through; the site's Year A Christmas-1 index page (yeara/christmas1a.htm) 404s, so this is the working per-passage page for the same text.