The old codger’s sitting back here looking out at the River Tree thawing out in the unseasonable warmth of the December sun and thinking about the meaning of Jesus’ journey to us.
Two thousand years ago, a carpenter and his very young wife, heavy with child, journeyed for the first time in their lives, far from home across the cold winter desert, thanks to their king’s edict, to a strange, unknown place. No one knew them there, and they knew no one. Everyone they went to for shelter turned them away until they finally had to take refuge in a drafty, dirty stable. They were almost certainly cold, tired, lonely, worn from rejection, and fearful of this strange, unknown place and its people. But He who was given birth there irrevocably changed our world.
Immigrants.
Though Joseph and Mary and their newborn child didn’t wind up staying in Bethlehem, He has been the very definition of an unwelcome and feared immigrant to humanity. He came to live and work in a strange new land and wasn’t just driven away, but viciously tortured and murdered with the sanction of not only the legal authorities, but the faith leadership of the time. But, as we know, He is with us now, and He will never, ever leave us.
We’re all immigrants and children of immigrants. Our parents, grandparents, or ancestors came here. Unless we’ve got Indian blood, we all came from someplace else — pretty much because we had to.
Joseph and Mary were forced to travel because of a ridiculous governmental decree. We, our relatives, and our ancestors came here for a variety of reasons that can be winnowed down to the same reason Christ came to us: He had to. He loves us.
Some of us were brought to this land we now share by force, but most of us came so we could provide a safe and productive future for ourselves and our families.
Whether this land offered promise or simply fear of the unknown, we came. In the dank holds of countless ships, in chains or as indentured servants, to till the land or provide for those who had come before. And we and our offspring thrived here because — unless artificial obstacles such as laws meant to discriminate based on color, ethnicity, ignorance, or faith are placed in our way — if we put our efforts to it, this land has offered us an uncountable, immeasurable, ever-growing bounty.
That immigrant vigor, insatiable will, and work ethic has immeasurably multiplied the riches we found here over the decades and centuries since. And, to be clear, if we were to do a count of how “we” arrived, I’d lay good odds that a large majority of our ancestors didn’t arrive on these shores with any type of authorization from a dysfunctional governmental body — whether indigenous, French, British, Russian, Spanish, or American — nor did we care one whit whether we did. We either came because we were made to, or we came because we felt we had to for our families, our children, and our future.
And I guarantee you that if your — or our — kids’ lives and well-being were on the line, we’d suffer anything and do pretty much anything for them.
Pretty much the same reason Christ came to us.
Hey, we’re His children, and He came to this alien and dangerous place to save us. And what was that message He gave us again?
Love, protect, and care for each other, whatever our faith, color, ethnicity, or place of origin. We are all fellow immigrant children of God, journeying through this earth — His land of plenty — if we allow it and Him.
Darned if that isn’t a message that warms the cockles of my heart, whatever nastiness there is in the news or in today’s ridiculous human edicts in this His world.
Here’s wishing us all a blessed, safe, and welcoming Christmas!
