Was Jesus a Refugee?

A Message Spreading Across Billboards and Social Media

“Jesus Was a Refugee.” Recently, that message has appeared on billboards, TV ads, t-shirts, and across social media debates. Much of this messaging is part of a broader campaign called He Gets Us, which aims to help people recognize that Jesus was a human being who can identify with us in our humanity.

That’s a powerful reality for the nearly 37 million refugees in our world today — a number unprecedented in recorded history. The Gospel of Matthew tells us that early in his human experience, Jesus was forced to flee the threat of Herod’s persecution. Carried by Joseph and Mary to Egypt, beyond Herod’s dominion, the holy family sought safety from the genocide inflicted on the little boys of Bethlehem

But Was Jesus Technically a Refugee?

Today, formal legal definitions for the term “refugee” exist in both U.S. and international law: refugees are those outside of their countries of origin who are unable or unwilling to return because of a well-founded fear of persecution on account of their race, religion, political opinion, nationality, or membership in a particular social group. These definitions, of course, did not exist when the holy family made their journey.

Perhaps it is more precise to characterize the holy family as Internally Displaced Persons — those forced to flee their homes but who remain within the boundaries of their country. More than 74 million people in our world today share that experience. Or perhaps Jesus was an asylum seeker: someone who professes to meet the definition of a refugee but whose protection is not guaranteed until they have demonstrated, to the satisfaction of governing authorities, that their fear of persecution is credible. Would Joseph have cited an angelic message as his evidence? Would that have satisfied an Egyptian immigration judge?

What We Don't Know — and What We Do

The Gospel of Matthew gives us very few details about the holy family’s experience in Egypt. We are left to wonder: Were they welcomed, seen as a potential threat, or simply ignored? Did Jesus learn to speak his first words with a different accent than his parents? Did Joseph find work easily, or was he told he was “stealing” a job from an Egyptian carpenter?

Fortunately, there is no evidence in the biblical text that the holy family faced barriers to finding refuge. But many of today’s refugees know viscerally what it means to awaken in the middle of the night and flee with what little they could carry — to feel danger just behind them, to complete a grueling journey only to arrive in a new land with the ongoing grief of losing their homeland. Jesus presumably lived all of that in his fully human flesh as a small child.

Jesus and the Stranger

Decades later, in one of his final sermons before his crucifixion, Jesus commended certain individuals for having welcomed him when he was a stranger. The disciples were confused — they did not remember welcoming him. Jesus told them they had done so every time they welcomed one of “the least of these.” Jesus identifies himself perpetually with the vulnerable and the stranger — which, at least early in his life, he himself was.

What This Means for Us Today

Whether Jesus would satisfy the precise legal definition of a refugee or not, what is clear for those who profess to follow him is that an unprecedented crisis of forced migration — with more than 123 million people displaced from their homes — presents an unprecedented opportunity to demonstrate love for Jesus himself.

Published by إغاثة العالم.