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.

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just a space

"Nick, is it still cool if me and the kids come?"
"Absolutely brother, come on down."
"Ok, thanks."

He'd been telling me for months that he was going to come. Saying he needed it, it would be good for the kids, he needed it. In one week his life had flown into a whirl-wind. His grandpa...the one who basically raised him, the one who let him, his wife and his kids live with him for such a long time, the one he looked to the most had died. i was there the night before his grandpa died. i could see the pain on his face, the pleading eyes for some sign that his grandpa could hear him. i could see in his eyes as I shared of the hope we possess something that begged to know the truth of that, to know in the midst of this pain and uncertainty that this isn't it...

...same week...

she just didn't love him anymore. At least that is what she told him. she's leaving. and here he stands, 25 years old, 3 kids, 2 by his wife and one his wife had before him...and somehow, some way he needs to hold it together. he didn't want his kids to see him like this, hed tell me as we stood in my front yard, his 200+ body crumbling as i hugged him.

so when he came, when he finally came over to share a burger and a Word...i was hopeful for a moment that we could provide a space in our backyard that was holy, that was peaceful...that was what he needed. a space where healing could begin. his kids played and ate. he relaxed, ate and laughed. and as the kids sat and listened to a story he sat with my wife, and she did what she does, gave him that space. he opened up to her and as the story wrapped up, he hurried to the side yard so his kids couldn't see his vulnerability, his fragility. we sent the kiddos inside to Find Nemo, and we settled into a study of the Holy Spirit. and again, the space was made...as we came to a close he opened up to all of us around that table and broke down, cried...done something he knew he needed to do, but didn't know who to tell. we listened, we offered words of sympathy and empathy, words of hope and of promises uttered by One greater than us. we prayed.

he left that night with his kids to see the Starlight parade, and when he didn't thankfulness was written all over his face. clearly the journey is not over, but it was clear he was thankful to know he didn't have to go it alone...

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identity

the enemy is tricky. the way he is able to hold people captive is awful. my heart hurts when i see people bound by things outside of them, as well as inside of them. yesterday when Mandy was at the hospital, I took the boys to a near by park to kill time until we were able to join her for a tour of the maternity ward. it was a nice little park, swing sets, see-saws, climbing structures, slides...plus there was a basketball hoop, a pavilion and tons of open space. i even ran into a friend down there.

in the 45 minutes we were there, i definitely witnessed two drug deals, and may have witnessed a few more. you could see it coming...the buyer acting shifty, scratching their arms; clearly looking for a fix. the dealer waiting, almost playing with the addict, the captive one. they would then begin haggling over something until the price the dealer is seeking gets met. the addict walks away with their fix, knowing they are about to get a moment of freedom for the itch...only to have it return later. and the dealer leaves, feeling a bit victorious and attempting to absolve himself of feeding someone else's addiction...

as i sat there with my two sons everything in me wanted to run over there and tell the addict...you don't have to, you don't need this, you can fight it, we get find a way to help you fight it!

it brought me back to something i've been sitting on for about a week. its a touchy thing really, it affects so many of us. please add your thoughts, comments, critiques.

there are so many people like this addict who have become bound, who have become victims of

something outside of them. be it a drug, alcohol, violence done to them; physical and emotional. yes, some start themselves on their path of becoming a victim...but most are victimized...

i've met many people in my life who are victims of the people around them. they've been abandoned, beaten, raped, hated, slandered, lied to, set-up, drugged...the list could continue. my heart hurts at the thought of the people who's faces enter my mind just as i type each word. we have all been victims of the evil in this world in some way or another...be it relational or systemic.

the worst part of it all for me is when i watch people stay victims. they re-live their victimization, they stay there...they identify themselves as victims and with their victimization. they can't imagine their lives without that, and thus they make it their all-consuming identity. how they relate to the world around them is completely based on their identity as victim of ______.

before i write more, hear me out...I am not saying 'Get over it'. i don't want to be insensitive to the hurt and pain anyone has endured on any level, at any time. if you were a victim of anyone; know this, it is awful, no one can know what you've experienced, i wish it had never happened. it makes my heart hurt, it makes God's heart hurt. nor am i saying, forget about it, pretend it never happened. its a part of your story, but it doesn't have to be the whole story....

please though, please don't allow it to consume you. one of the trickiest traps the enemy has is to find a way to keep us a victim, keep us in our brokenness and pain, of having the pain and the action consume us to a point where God cannot even redeem the pain because we can't even imagine our lives without it!

there is another reason the enemy seeks to keep us as victims...we see victims as innocents. victims did not do anything to merit what was done to them. and if we remain in that victim state, if we allow ourselves to remain as victims; we begin to see ourselves as innocents and that begins to pervade every area of our lives until we begin to think we can't be in the wrong; because we are the victim...'this happened, that's why i'm this way and its ok because this happened"... we absolve ourselves of responsibility, we rob ourselves of transformation, we prevent God from being able to take those broken pieces of glass and transform them into something beautiful, something that shows the power a loving God has over the sin and evil in this world.

the enemy definitely doesn't want that. so he whispers, 'its ok, you're a victim, its not your fault. you're stuck in this now, you can't make it past this. besides, you're broken, you're a victim, what can you do anyway...'

but God is a liberating God. God is a transforming God. God proclaims freedom for the captives, liberation for the oppressed. God is who enables us to break away from an identity wrapped up in our victimization, and into an identity as the children of God. let that be what defines you. believe that today you can say, 'i was a victim. now i'm a child of God and victor in Christ.'

church, we must walk with the victims in our lives. its a hard thing, we don't like to enter into suffering, we try to avoid suffering at all costs. but church, if we are going to be like Christ...we must enter into the suffering that surrounds us, we must suffer with those in pain; that they might know they are not alone. we must be incarnational.

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