Jesus Was a Refugee. Jesus Was a Migrant.

Last updated on: April 21, 2016 at 10:07 am by Kyle Roberts

Jesus Was a Refugee. Jesus Was a Migrant. 2016-04-21T10:07:22-05:00 Kyle Roberts

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Jesus’s life started like so many other unfortunate ones across the globe. As a refugee. As a migrant.

By Haeferl (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 via Wikimedia Commons

That’s the story Matthew tells. After news of his birth traveled to king Herod, the Roman client king issued a decree for all boys (under 2 yrs old) in Bethlehem to be killed. He would eliminate the symbolic threat to his power, that so-called “king of the Jews,” even if it required wholesale slaughter.

Warned of this by an angel in a dream, Joseph takes Mary and Jesus and heads to Egypt. This is a clear reversal of the Exodus story in the Hebrew Bible, when Moses leads the Israelite out of Egypt to escape the Pharaoh’s oppressive ways. But Jesus, presented as the “new Moses” in Matthew, flees into Egypt, out of Galilee, to escape king Herod. Then, he would come “out of Egypt” again, to save his people.

Joseph, Mary, and infant Jesus traversed borders. Left their homeland; embracing risk to escape danger. They stayed in Egypt, perhaps for a few years (acc. to Matthew’s account). Presumably the young, poor, migrant Jewish family found some help, some hospitality, some hope in that foreign land. It’s possible (likely, some say–see Daniel Carroll’s Christians at the Border, p. 105) that their destination in Egypt was Alexandria–where there was a significant Jewish population.

Even so, they would have been foreigners, strangers, migrants, refugees. Vulnerable, but hopeful. Dependent on the hospitality of others.

The Messiah, the son of David, the son of God, was a migrant and a refugee to start his life.

When I read yesterday about the 500 migrants who died in the Mediterranean sea, fleeing Libya to Italy–desperate for a better and safer life for their themselves and for their families, I thought of Jesus. I thought of his humble beginnings, his family’s desperate journey to an unknown land, a land where they were undocumented, but taken in all the same.

In an essay about Jesus as refugee in the gospel of Matthew, Ched Myers writes,

Matthew speaks frankly about political violence, displacement, and danger–which is to say, of real life as it is for the poor. Here is a story for our world, which still teems with refugees, lamenting mothers, and the duplicitous schemes of the powerful. But this is the world in which God is with us, into which God has come and yet will come. The only question is, will we recognize the presence and act accordingly?

The presence of the most vulnerable among us offer a window into the human heart: its capacity for both evil and for good, for exclusion and embrace, for rejection and for hospitality.

It also offers a window into God’s nature and heart.

Jesus was a migrant and a refugee. He was also the “image of the invisible God.”

If Jesus’ heart tilted toward the poor, the marginalized, the vulnerable, the down-and-out, the “least of these,” then God’s does too.

What about ours?

Uncategorized

Previous Post

April 20, 2016

What do Creation Stories Give Us? (Hint: A "Fixed Point")

Next Post

April 22, 2016 The Pale Blue Dot (A Reflection on Earth Day)

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category Uncategorized

Select a Month December 2020 November 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 December 2018 July 2018 March 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 October 2017 September 2017 August 2017 July 2017 June 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 October 2016 September 2016 August 2016 July 2016 June 2016 May 2016 April 2016 March 2016 February 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz