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This past week, the US State Department ordered World Relief and other organizations to “stop all work” related to paused federal grants, through which these organizations help refugees resettle in their first months in the country. This comes shortly on the heels of a last-minute order from the United States government that put those fleeing Taliban persecution in Afghanistan—including those who helped the US in the war against al-Qaeda—in precarious limbo.
The matter right now is not just the global backlash against refugees but the glee with which some anti-refugee figures celebrate their rejection and revile those who would remind them that Jesus of Nazareth was, in fact, a refugee.
But was he? And if so, why does that matter?
The question of whether Jesus was ever a refugee is straightforward and without any ambiguity. The United Nations currently defines a refugee as someone who “has been forced to flee his or her country because of persecution, war or violence.” This is consistent with the normal everyday usage of the word in English. Merriam-Webster, for instance, defines refugee as “one that flees,” especially “a person who flees to a foreign country or power to escape danger or persecution.”
The Gospel of Matthew records that King Herod—enraged by word from Eastern star-seekers that the Messiah had been born in Bethlehem—ordered every male child in the region under two years old to be murdered (Matt. 2:16). Joseph had been warned about this ahead of time by an angelic presence in a dream and was told to flee to Egypt (v. 13).
The Bible tells us that Joseph, Mary, and Jesus remained in Egypt until the death of Herod. Even then, though, Joseph was warned, once again in a dream, that the situation in Judea under Herod’s son Archelaus was still perilous, so he “withdrew to the district of Galilee” (vv. 19–23, ESV throughout).
What’s more, Matthew records that this flight into Egypt was part of an even greater prophetic solidarity between Jesus and his people, the people of Israel. The escape and refuge and return was, as Matthew says, “to fulfill what the Lord had spoken by the prophet, ‘Out of Egypt I called my son’” (v. 15).
That prophet was Hosea, to whom God used those words to talk about the Exodus of Israel from Egypt under Moses (Hos. 11:1). At that time, God told Pharaoh through Moses, “Israel is my firstborn son, and I say to you, ‘Let my son go that he may serve me” (Ex. 4:22–23).
Jesus, the ultimate embodiment of the storyline of Israel, reenacted and redeemed that story. Just as God saved Israel from starvation by their sojourn in Egypt, God preserved Jesus the Israelite there. Just as God directed the Hebrews when to escape from the persecuting king, so he did with the household of the Messiah. Just as God protected the Israelites in the wilderness and through the waters of Jordan into the land of promise, Jesus was sent from the Jordan River into the wilderness in the power of the Spirit (Matt. 3:13–4:11).
Between the Exodus generation and the birth of Jesus, there are a string of refugees. Jesus’ ancestor Rahab, a prostitute in Jericho, fled from her own people and sought refuge with the Israelites after she helped the armies of Joshua take the Promised Land (Josh. 2). Another ancestor, a widow named Ruth, left her home country of Moab to go with her mother-in-law, Naomi, to Bethlehem, where she survived by gleaning the remnants of crops (Ruth 1–2).
Ruth thought she would be denigrated by Boaz, an Israelite man, since she was a foreigner. Instead, he commended her for how she left her parents and her native land to come to a people that she had not known before (2:11), in order to care for her late husband’s mother. Boaz blessed Ruth in the name of “the Lord, the God of Israel, under whose wings” she had “come to take refuge” (v. 12).
Jesus’ forefather David fled from the murderously intended persecution of King Saul (1 Sam. 19:18), seeking refuge for a time even in the enemy territory of Gath (ch. 21) and then in the hills and caves (26:1–3) and in the land of the Philistines (chs. 27–29).
Such examples could be multiplied at dizzying length since, as the Bible puts it, “time would fail me to tell” of the names of those who were “destitute, afflicted, mistreated—of whom the world was not worthy—wandering about in deserts and mountains, and in dens and caves of the earth” (Heb. 11:32, 37–38).
This is the story to which Jesus in the fullness of time inhabited, the story into which he has called those of us who follow him.
So what does that tell us about refugee policy? At one level, it tells us not very much. No country can take every refugee, any more than any person or church can care for every widow or orphan. A country taking prudential measures to screen and vet refugees is wise and necessary for that country to maintain its duty to uphold justice and order (Rom. 13:1–5). Christians can and do differ on what the right way is to accomplish these goals.
But while Christians can disagree on the policy numbers of refugees that a country is able to welcome, we have no right to dissent from the Bible on what we are to think of refugees themselves or on the motivations with which we should approach responding to them. And that does affect policy in the long run.
The Bible does not give us a tax policy, but it does reshape the consciences of tax collectors so that they don’t abuse their power or extort (Luke 3:13–14). Consider what would happen with a society that honors graft, and in which tax policy is created solely to reward “friends” and to punish “enemies.” We would need no blueprint to know that such motivations would result in unjust policies.
A Christian working for the Internal Revenue Service should not impose some biblical “tax policy” on the rest of the nation, but that Christian should be shaped in mind and conscience to recognize the warning about those who “do not bring justice to the fatherless, and the widow’s cause does not come to them” (Isa. 1:23).
In a time of anti-refugee rhetoric around the world, much of it ugly and hateful, the key test for Christians will be what it often is: Who are the people who are invisible to us?
Those who aren’t refugees are tempted to think that this is an irrelevant situation to them. Think of how differently we process matters that intersect with us personally.
For example, I can think of people who have led the way in combatting the unjust marketing of opioids that result in widespread addiction. Many of these advocates speak up because they’ve seen the damage that has been done to someone close to them. It’s not that these people would have been pro-opioid addiction otherwise, but they might never have thought about it at all.
I know many who work against genocide around the world because in their family histories, they had relatives who died in the Holocaust or fled the Nazi regime. These people would not otherwise be pro-genocide, but they are especially aware of what could happen when consciences are not awake to such atrocities. Thus, they recognize what’s at work when, for instance, concentration camps are built for Uyghur people in China.
Most American Christians are not refugees. Many won’t know a refugee family in their community personally. These Christians might then simply ignore the plight of refugees. And yet no Christian conscience can allow their mistreatment to stand. We all do know a refugee family. As a matter of fact, we are part of one. If we are in Christ, his history is ours (1 Cor. 10:1–2).
Refugees are unpopular. Often, they are scapegoated and maligned. “So Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood,” the Book of Hebrews states. “Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come” (Heb. 13:12–14).
The Jesus who went outside of the camp—cursed and reviled and virtually alone—calls us to follow him wherever he goes, including there. And he calls us to pay attention to the people to whom he pays attention, for he hears the cries of those who are in peril even when no one else does (James 5:4).
We won’t always agree on how to design a national refugee policy, but we can’t say we haven’t been warned about what happens to us when we learn to harden our hearts to those in danger. We should be so shaped by the story of Christ that we catch ourselves when we hear ourselves saying, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?” (John 1:46).
Yes, Jesus was a refugee. And he is still in their camp. We should be too.
Russell Moore is the editor in chief at Christianity Today and leads its Public Theology Project.
