Jesus the Refugee

This morning at church our Gospel reading came from Matthew Ch. 2.13-23.  As we spent time in the passage, I got stuck on this...that Jesus, as an infant, became a political refugee.  Facing certain death due to an infant genocide, Jesus was scooped up by his mother and step-dad, and they fled...for their lives.  Instantly images of the refugees out of the Sudan or Uganda began to flood my mind, as did images of the Rwandan genocide; and after briefly determining between me, myself, and I that Hotel Rwanda was Don Cheadle's best performance...I was brought back to this; here, we had Jesus the refugee.  Sure, he was still Jesus the infant-King, Jesus our Emmanuel but, he was at the same time, Jesus the refugee.  One fleeing while children on all sides were slaughtered...going to live in Egypt as a political refugee.

I tried to imagine it...I tried to picture Joseph and Mary, clutching Jesus close as they gathered what little they had brought with them and throwing it on the back of their donkey and hightailing it out of Bethlehem.  Was Joseph certain of their safe passage, because you know, an angel had told him to leave?  Or did he doubt himself as they hurriedly packed and fled?  Was Mary still resting in the Magnificat she has sung?  Was she still 'pondering these things in her heart'?  Or did her sense of security evaporate as her betrothed awoke and said, we got's to go...


...and then i was left with this...

What an amazing God-with-us.  Not only would he become an infant child, but an infant child born into a politically unstable social environment whose birth would spark a genocide and force he and his family to become refugees in a strange land.  We fret over much.  The things that cause us to question, to doubt, that leave us wondering where God is, I am chastising myself now as I think the small things I've gone through in life.  Here was my Savior, choosing this life to give my life hope, meaning, and newness...

...thanks be to God.