A Refugee Baby

By Sara Barton, chaplain at Pepperdine University.

A Refugee Baby

Stories about suffering babies tear at our hearts. Consider a sampling of such stories in the headlines this year:

A dead refugee child on a beach in Turkey. [1]
A sick child in an immigrant detention center without proper medical care. [2]
A newborn deserted in the crevice of a bike path in Compton, California. [3]
Another abandoned in the manger of a nativity scene in New York. [4]

The juxtaposition of
sweet purity and life
with the realities of death, suffering, and injustice
is almost too much to bear.
It haunts us. It keeps us awake at night.

The Christmas story is one of another baby.
And sometimes we narrate the story as if
all was calm,
all was bright.

But Jesus, although he was in very nature God, did not to hold onto his equality with God as he entered this world in the form of a human baby

a vulnerable baby,
a persecuted baby,
a refugee baby.

Almost all of the feel-good stories we associate with Christmas are in Luke’s gospel, and we certainly won’t forget Luke’s story. But there are reasons to listen to Matthew, because as he tells this terrifying story in the first gospel, he helps us discern how to make sense of God’s ultimate juxtaposition.

Herod, like Pharaoh before him, embodied unspeakable brutality and cruelty.
Jesus, like Moses before him, embodied
the juxtaposition of
sweet purity and life
with the realities of death, suffering, and injustice.
Our Christmas story is almost too much to bear.

But Matthew boldly admits the reality.
He doesn’t edit out the scary parts.
He doesn’t sprinkle the story with sugar-coating or glitter.
He doesn’t wrap the story with Rudolph wrapping paper.

As Matthew narrates it, this is a broken, hostile, suffering world that cannot save itself from abuse of power, xenophobia, fear-motivated politics, and trumped-up charges against innocents.

This is a world that does not, has not, and cannot save even the babies from suffering and persecution.

Matthew’s version of Christmas refuses to cover up humanity’s worst depravity. It’s exactly because of countless incidents of harsh humanity, of babies and grieving parents that God came into the world in the most vulnerable way.

And it is astonishingly and unpredictably through radical vulnerability that God overcomes evil with good.

Matthew narrates the story of a God,
whose light shines in the dark (2:1-2)
who keeps promises (2:5-7)
who protects (2:12-15)
who remembers refugees (2:13-14)
who grants respite (2:19-20)
who provides wisdom (2:21-22)
a God whose kingdom provides an alternative to the politics of murder (Matthew chapters 5-7).

And so…as hard as the juxtaposition of this season is to bear, Christians choose to believe that our God is bringing peace, is bearing this burden with us, is reconciling a broken and unjust world. We choose to believe in the God who became a juxtaposition, not to solve the problems in the world through power and might but through power that derives from love. Love that miraculously overthrows the evil powers of the world.

Nations come and go. Governments come and go. Tyrants come and go. Terrorists come and go. Herods come and go. Kings come and go. Compromised politicians come and go.

But God’s love endures in a kingdom of people who believe in love!

God’s love endures in a kingdom of people who know that the Christmas story is ultimately about loving God and loving our neighbors (Matthew 22:36-40).

God’s love endures in people who listen to the words of the refugee baby who grew up to teach us,

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.….Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these, you did for me. (Matthew 25: 31-46).

So, when we gather on Christmas, we are a people who, because of the resurrection, are not afraid. (Matthew 28:1-8). Like the magi before us, we are acutely aware of the dangers, brokenness, and suffering of this world. But, evil cannot, does not, will not prevent our worship!

Because of the Christ-child,
the juxtaposition of
sweet purity and life
with the realities of death, suffering, and injustice,
our Christmas story does not allow hate and evil to become a burden too heavy to bear.

Ours is a story of love overcoming hate through hope, faith, joy and peace.
And so with our eyes wide open to the world, we sing,

Silent night, holy night,
all is calm, all is bright
Round yon virgin Mother and Child,
Holy infant so tender and mild,
Sleep in heavenly peace,
Sleep in heavenly peace.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/09/03/a-desperate-refugee-family-a-capsized-boat-and-3-year-old-dead-on-a-beach-in-turkey/

[2]  http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/ice-child-detention_55ad76bfe4b0d2ded39fd708

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mix/wp/2015/12/08/she-did-not-want-to-deliver-the-baby-mother-of-calif-newborn-found-buried-alive-is-charged/

[4] http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/25/nyregion/newborn-is-left-in-nativity-scene-at-a-queens-church.html?_r=0