A Refugee God

Now when they had departed, behold, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you, for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” And he rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed to Egypt and remained there until the death of Herod. Matthew 2:13-15

How amazing, that God should love us enough to come into this world as a human baby, to share our lives in all their pain—even the hardest experiences! In Matthew 2 we see Jesus as a refugee—a toddler, barely old enough to walk and talk, torn away from his own country because his life was in danger.

Imagine what it must have been like for him—and for his parents! No doubt Joseph went looking for work as soon as he got there—and it would have been hard to find, far away from all his friends and family, with nobody to vouch for him or offer a helping hand. Mary would have had to learn how to bargain at the markets in a new language. I wonder how long it took her to learn? And Jesus—no doubt he picked up the local language as quickly as little ones do, playing with the Egyptian children of his own age. Did his parents worry about him losing the culture and language he was born into, like so many refugee parents do?

This is the life God chose for himself—because he loves us enough to come to us in our hardships and trouble. And he did more than just sharing our life—he shared our death, too. Jesus fought the power of evil on our behalf and broke it through his own suffering and death on the cross. And now that he has risen from the dead, he offers free, everlasting life, to anyone who will take it as a gift from his hands—to anyone who will trust in him. Our refugee Savior has come to bring us home to God’s own house, never to be exiled again.

By Dr. Kari Vo