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I will be blogging through the emotions of the Christmas story this holiday season (see part 1). This post will focus in on the sorrow and grief of a family of refugees in Matthew 2:13-23:
13 After the wise men left, an angel from the Lord came to Joseph in a dream. The angel said, “Get up! Take the child with his mother and escape to Egypt. Herod wants to kill the child and will soon start looking for him. Stay in Egypt until I tell you to come back.”
14 So Joseph got ready and left for Egypt with the child and the mother. They left during the night. 15 Joseph stayed in Egypt until Herod died. This gave full meaning to what the Lord said through the prophet: “I called my son to come out of Egypt.”
16 Herod saw that the wise men had fooled him, and he was very angry. So he gave an order to kill all the baby boys in Bethlehem and the whole area around Bethlehem. Herod had learned from the wise men the time the baby was born. It was now two years from that time. So he said to kill all the boys who were two years old and younger. 17 This gave full meaning to what God said through the prophet Jeremiah:
18 “A sound was heard in Ramah—
bitter crying and great sadness.
Rachel cries for her children,
and she cannot be comforted,
because her children are gone.”19 While Joseph was in Egypt, Herod died. An angel from the Lord came to Joseph in a dream 20 and said, “Get up! Take the child with his mother and go to Israel. Those who were trying to kill the child are now dead.”
21 So Joseph took the child and the mother and went to Israel. 22 But he heard that Archelaus was now king in Judea. Archelaus became king when his father Herod died. So Joseph was afraid to go there. Then, after being warned in a dream, he went away to the area of Galilee. 23 He went to a town called Nazareth and lived there. This gave full meaning to what God said through the prophets. God said the Messiah would be called a Nazarene.
Home sweet home.
There’s no place like home.
Home for the holidays.
I’ll be home for Christmas.
These merry phrases, and the like, abound around Christmas time. They’re sung much and seen often, but the weight of their meaning is lost on those of us who quote it without paying attention.
Seriously, consider yourself immensely fortunate to have a place, or a unit of people, to call home.
Not everyone is so fortunate.
According the The UN Refugee Agency,
More than 800,000 people have crossed the Mediterranean and Aegean so far this year, fleeing war, persecution and violence in Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Eritrea, and other countries. For many, the choice to embark on such dangerous journeys seems the only way to give their children a chance of survival and safety.
There is a an area of our world experiencing a refugee crisis at the moment. It’s nothing new, this is just the most recent and predominant displacement of people from their homes, families, and normal lives.
Jesus knew this dislocation firsthand.
Fearing for their lives, Joseph and Mary, along with their two year old miracle child, fled from their home to find asylum, and hopefully a home, in Egypt. They were fleeing from the psycho-megalomaniac, King Herod, who vowed to slaughter every baby boy in the land to execute any possibility of his throne being overthrown by a child. Much like the refugees of today fleeing the violence and danger posed by radical dictators and extremists.
Jesus and his family were refugees.
N.T. Wright clarifies that the gospel of Matthew was born in a land at a time of trouble, tension, violence, and fear. Banish all thoughts of peaceful Christmas scenes. Before the Prince of Peace had learned to walk and talk, he was a homeless refugee with a price on his head. Jesus was helpless.
There’s no place like home.
As a cry of bitter sadness rose from Ramah, can we hear the sorrow and grief that rises around the globe? Do we resonate with the ache of loss and the longing for home?
Is there room in our hearts for their plight?
Is there room in our homes for their families?
It’s hard to relate, and even contemplate making room, isn’t it? Christmastime isn’t necessarily the ideal time for hearing the cry of the refugee, the orphan, the helpless. Is there ever really a good time?
Blogger, Rachel Held Evans, digs into this tension with a provocative example,
On Wednesday [November 18], a young Syrian family fleeing violence in their native country was forced to change their resettlement plans when the governor of Indiana declared they would not be welcome in his state because of their nationality. The married couple, who has a five-year-old son, had been working with U.S. officials and nonprofit organizations for three years to obtain refugee status and move to America. They were diverted to Connecticut, where they received a personal welcome from that state’s governor.
This doesn’t just happen on the national level. It happens in our hearts all the time. (I feel it myself. I’m curious to know what I would do if I were governor of Indiana.) The questions remain, What causes us to close a state? our homes? our hearts to helpless?
Maybe we should ask it from a different angle, what made Jesus so open to the helpless, the homeless, the displaced of his day?
Was it sympathy (to feel concern for someone else)?
Was it empathy (to feel what someone else is feeling)?
Was it divinity (to do what God would do)?
(Could they be one and the same?)
Was it the fact that he was once a refugee, a human without a home? He knew what they were going through and he knew they needed someone to make room for their lives, their mess, their fears, and their unknowns.
His family history was overshadowed by the emotions of sorrow and grief associated with terror, death, and loss. Sorrow and grief that hollowed out space for others in his universe-sized heart.
Loss is a part of life, sorrow and grief are the ways our brains and bodies were designed to process and cope with the pain of loss. This emotional response is not limited to loss brought about by death, it can extend to the loss of a longstanding friendship or job, a pet, a routine, and even a home. All loss causes a level of sorrow and grief.
Psychological clinicians have formalized a grieving process that ranges from denial to acceptance. Jesus may have carried the trauma from his early life in his memory, but it is easier to speculate that he carried it in his compassionate actions and open-hearted authority toward others.
The compassion and open-heartedness that can only be brought about through sorrow and grief.
Richard Rohr explains it this way:
The real authority that changes the world is an inner authority that comes from people who have lost, let go, and are re-found on a new level. These are the people who can heal, reconcile, understand, and change [and make room for] others. The pattern for this new kind of authority was taught by Jesus when he said, “Simon, you must be sifted like wheat and I will pray that you will not fail; and once you have recovered, you in turn can strengthen the brothers [and sisters]” (Luke 22:31-32, italics mine). This sifting and then recovering is Peter’s real and life-changing authority, as it is for anyone.
This is the good side of grief; the hard to find part of grief; the surprising outcome of the undesirable process of grief.
When we embrace our personal sorrow and grief, we may have the strength to open our hearts and homes to those who have lost heart and home themselves.
The Advent story is good news because it gives us permission to grieve, while encouraging us to find (in time) a deeper meaning in our grieving.
An Advent Meditation: Make room in my heart for others.
A Video for More Information:
A Blog for Further Reflection: Wrapping Around Foster and Adoptive Parents
A Song for Inspiration:
French Pressed Fridays 