The Christmas story is a refugee story
“So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt, where he stayed until the death of Herod.”
The modern refugee protection system was established after World War II as the world said “never again” to the horrors of the Holocaust. But people had been fleeing across political boundaries to seek safety long before then. Including Christ himself.
When I get discouraged about the ways that Christ has been used to justify and prop up the powerful at the expense of those with less power, I try to remind myself of the Jesus I meet in Scripture. The Jesus who was born to an occupied ethnicity under the thumb of one of the largest, most powerful empires the world had ever seen. The helpless infant who had to be carried to safety by his peasant parents because a power-hungry king was trying to kill him. The homeless teacher who was executed by the state and religious leaders for upsetting social structures by preaching that the Kingdom of God was near.
Jesus was a refugee.
If you’d like to order the t-shirt above, you can do so until next Monday, November 30! Just follow this link, and if you’re not in Hamilton, I’ll find a way to get the shirt to you once it’s printed. The proceeds will go to welcome refugee claimants into communities of belonging in Hamilton, through Open Homes.
Here’s the song that will be my soundtrack this Advent season, as we wait for the arrival of the refugee king.