Was Jesus A Refugee? Of Course He Was.

Was Jesus a refugee?

Of course he was.

The only reason to deny the clear Biblical message is because you don’t want to do what the Bible says.

Was Jesus a refugee? Of course he was. Faith on the Fringe

This week’s lectionary scripture, Matthew 2:13-23 occurs immediately after the magi meet and venerate the two-year-old toddler Jesus. And then warned in a dream of King Herod’s scheme, and they went home by another way.

Here are the highlights: “Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod.” . . . Herod “sent and killed all the children in and around Bethlehem who were two years old or under.” When Joseph “heard that Archelaus was ruling Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go there.” . . . so “he went away to the district of Galilee. There he made his home in a town called Nazareth.”

In a nation that once prided itself on being a nation of immigrants, the United States office of Immigration and Customs Enforcement has a budget larger than the Marine Corps. Think about that for a minute. The United States Marines, with missions around the world, have a smaller budget than ICE, charged with protecting the nation’s boarders.

This year, rather than do the very dangerous work of arresting gang members, ICE agents took the easy route and detained unarmed women and men in courthouses, in daycare centers, and even outside churches.

This year was just a preview of what will come in 2026 — Many more armed ICE agents randomly stopping dark skinned residents in the streets, more raids on businesses where hard working employees will be detained without warrants. This year, hundreds of American citizens were illegally detained by ICE agents and many more Americans will be illegally detained next year. ICE agents will kill people on the streets of the United States and it’s only by God’s grace that they haven’t actually hit the multiple people they’ve shot at this year.

This year saw the administration attempt to deport a plane full of babies, infants. Despite a judge’s order blocking the illegal deportation, government officials tried a second time, and the plane had to be stopped on the runway.

ICE has plans to circumvent the Constitutional right to due process by buying their own airplanes and creating their own airline, to make it easier to illegally deport anyone they choose.

Many people are not looking forward to the new year.

Theologian Karl Barth said we should preach with the newspaper in one hand and the Bible in the other.

So that was the newspaper and the facts, and now let’s look at the Bible.

In Matthew 2:13-23, a repressive government, the puppet governor Herod, propped up and supported by the Roman military, orders the murder of every child two years-old and younger, born in and around Bethlehem.

Fearing for their safety, to protect his adopted baby and his wife, the Bible tells us Joseph flees the land of their birth and goes to Egypt, where they are illegal immigrants.

Refugees.

I’ll make it plain and say it again. Jesus was an illegal immigrant.

Theologians believe Jesus, Mary and Joseph were in Egypt for at least a year and they may have been there several years. Refugees. Jesus and his family were refugees, seeking safety in another country.

Perhaps Jesus and his family were joined by other young parents also with toddlers fleeing lethal danger in Judea and living as refugees in another country.

Scripture reminds the Israelites that they, too were strangers in Egypt, in Exodus 22.

In Leviticus 19:33-34: “When a foreigner resides among you in your land, do not mistreat them. The foreigner residing among you must be treated as your native-born. Love them as yourself, for you were foreigners in Egypt.”

Deut: 10:19: “And you are to love those who are foreigners, for you yourselves were foreigners in Egypt.”

The prophet Zechariah, 7:9 “Long ago I gave these commands to my people: ‘You must see that justice is done, and must show kindness and mercy to one another. Do not oppress widows, orphans, foreigners who live among you, or anyone else in need.”

“See that justice is done – help those who are oppressed, give orphans their rights, and defend widows.” — Isaiah, chapter 1

In Matt. 25, Jesus says, “Then the King will say to those on his right, ‘Come, you who are blessed by my Father; take your inheritance, the kingdom prepared for you since the creation of the world. For I was hungry and you gave me something to eat, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you invited me in, I needed clothes and you clothed me, I was sick and you looked after me, I was in prison and you came to visit me.’

“Because, what you did for the least of them, you did for me,” Jesus says.

The Bible calls us to help strangers.

If you read the Bible and claim to follow Jesus, you can’t support the abuse of refugees in the U.S.

I resigned from being the pastor of a church exactly a year ago. We were too far apart spiritually and there was nothing I could do to close that gap.

For example, one morning before the worship service, when one of the elders was alone in the back preparing communion, she returned to the sanctuary to find a young couple carrying a small baby.

They were Spanish speakers who spoke very little English and the elder speaks no Spanish. Evidently, without anyone being able to communicate, the family left.

Together as a congregation, we talked about what happened — most people focused on concerns about the security of the woman elder there alone, an hour before the service.

During the discussion another elder said,

“It’s hard to know what to do in that situation.”

In a moment of unguarded frankness, I replied, “no it’s not. We know exactly what to do. We’re to welcome the stranger,” I said, quickly realizing this wasn’t what they wanted to hear from their pastor.

Over the next several months, Spanish speaking men put a new roof on the church and I realized that if ICE agents showed up at the church doors to arrest those men, every member of that congregation would have held the doors open for the federal agents.

That may be what the law says to do and what the politicians say to do, but it’s not what the Bible says to do. Churches across all denominations, around the world, have been offering sanctuary to strangers for nearly 2,000 years. And I realized my church wouldn’t.

So I resigned.

What would your church do?

What would you do?

If you found a refugee family — Jose, Maria, and baby Jesus, standing in the sanctuary, not speaking three words of English — what would you do?

Jesus was a refugee Faith on the Fringe

The law of the land says you have to turn them over to federal agents.

The law of the Lord says to welcome them as we would welcome Christ. Because, each one of them is the face of Christ, born in a manager. Each hungry person who enters this church is the face of God.

Everyone we encounter is made in the image of God.

Every child is a child of God. And what we do for them, we do to Christ. What we do to them, we do to Christ.

Do we stand with Jesus in the garden when he’s arrested or do we lead the authorities in and show them where to find ‘criminals?’

What would you do?

What are you prepared to do?

Fred Craddock was a Disciples of Christ preacher who influenced generations of preachers in our denomination as well as in other denominations.

I was fortunate to have heard him speak once, at the denomination’s General Assembly.

Fred once told a story about going to a strange grocery store in a strange city, where he was looking for peanut butter.

He was in a hurry, and the store was huge, so when he saw a woman pushing a cart at a comfortable stroll, he thought, ‘She knows her way around. I’ll ask her.’

“Excuse me,” he said, “could you direct me to the peanut butter?”

She jerked around, gave him a good hard look and said, “Are you trying to hit on me?”

“I’m just looking for peanut butter,” he said, backing away.

He eventually found the peanut butter, made his way to the checkout, and encountered the woman again.

“You really were looking for the peanut butter,” she said, when she saw the peanut butter in his hand.

“That’s what I told you,” he said, holding up the jar.

“You can’t be too careful,” the woman said.

“Yes,” Rev. Craddock replied, “Yes, you can.”

Yes, you can be too careful. You can care more about laws than the people laws are supposed to protect.

You can be too careful. You can put laws ahead of people. You can put government before God. You can put God first on Sunday, but because you can’t be too careful, you ignore the words of the Lord the other six days of the week.

Christmas Day reminds us that God took on human form in Jesus, giving God the opportunity to learn what it really means to be human, to live, suffer and die.

Most certainly God took on human form in Jesus to explicitly tell us what God expects of us — to care for the poor, the widows and the orphans. To feed the hungry and welcome strangers.

So let us consider how we will respond like Christ and ask ourselves, what are we prepared to do in the new year?