Our creator became one of US

By Elisabet Medina

“Take the young child and flee to Egypt” Matthew 2:13

This is the season where Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus. We celebrate that God chose to come to us in the form of mortal child, this child that was fully God yet also in grave danger because of a corrupt king who feared loss of power to the promised messiah.

God spoke to Joseph in a dream that the family was in danger and that they were to flee to Egypt. Commentaries note, that God’s instructions were instructions for self-preservation in the face of life threatening danger. Egypt was not a welcoming place, Egypt had been a source of oppression. Egypt was a superpower. Jesus and his family were refugees.

More than 2000 years later it is not a stretch to say that there are children and their families are faced with life threatening circumstances forced to flee their homes and risk their lives, throwing themselves on the mercy of others. Refugees flee to countries that they do not know, countries that are super powers, countries that do not necessarily welcome them.

When I look back over 2018, and how the United States has treated asylees and those seeking refuge, I hope that Christians can reflect on the birth of Jesus and see him in the faces of children seeking refuge today. I hope for those seeking refuge that they would know that there is a God that does not seek to judge them but a savior that empathizes with their reality.

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