Was Jesus a migrant? Is Jesus present in the journey of migrants and refugees? Are migrants and refugees Jesus’ face? I would like to say yes because my faith impels me to say so. Reading the Gospel, I was delighted to figure out that the entire life of Jesus was migration. Moreover, the phenomenon of migration is challenging our society since we are becoming xenophobic, selfish, and careless. The advent of the Ncovid-19 came as a reminder to the whole human community. It is a reminder based on the sacrality of our friendship, brotherhood, and hospitality among nations. From these challenges, some questions arise: why should we close our borders, territories, or nations to the migrants? What do we gain from discriminating against people? What do we gain from closing our borders to a stranger who is seeking for help? I give the opportunity to each one of us to answer these questions. We are asking signs in order to believe, yet we have the sign brought by the coronavirus that our humanity is one. There are no borders that can stop the propagation of the virus except love, charity, and compassion. Jesus’s migration is a sign of the presence of God journeying with the exiled, the migrants, the refugees, and the foreigners.
Besides, Jesus was pushed by his very mission to preach the Kingdom of God and he had to migrate from a town to another to fulfill the dream of God. At the very beginning of John’s Gospel, it is said: “The word was true light that enlightens all men; and he was coming into the world. He was in the world that had its being through him, and the world did not know. He came to his own domain and his own people did not accept him.”[1] From this short passage of John, I perceived that God himself as a migrant endures the same rude challenges of a migrating condition: departure, slavery, rejection, incomprehension, and torture. Furthermore, it is also related to the passage from the Gospel of Mathew 2: 9-21 that the Holy family migrated to Egypt because the child’s life was in danger. Jesus and his family were forced to go into exile. Exile because in their hometown there was no future, no dream, and no life for the newborn baby whose life was in danger. It was thus important for them to flee. We don’t choose to be exiled but there are many reasons which push someone or a community to exile as far as life is concerned.
In this pandemic time, we might ask ourselves where is God when we are suffering or struggling for food and better conditions of life? Even if “we didn’t accept him”, the simple fact that we have many generous people helping around is a sign of God’s presence who is leading us. I think about the frontliners, volunteers, priests, and others who gave their life for the service of those affected by the difficult situation of the moment. In the heart of the migrants, there is a seed of faith that ushered them to overcome obstacles, slavery, and humiliation in order to gain a better condition of life.
Though the big temptation is to close themselves off like the Apostles after the passion of Christ because they were afraid of being killed, there is the assurance of the presence of God who brings hope. Aside from people who rejected Jesus, there are others who welcomed him. Up to the present day, some reject him others welcome him. Jesus himself overcame humiliation. From his relation to his father, Jesus let himself be guided until the time he broke the wall of our fears. The faith of Jesus was a weapon against those who persecuted him in the street or wherever he passed. Jesus went out of his comfort zone until he became a migrant. Yet he is in our midst, in our life so as to move our heart towards the sufferings of others. We should not be afraid of migrants. They are in their right to ask for help since everything on earth is made for the whole human being. They are images of the wounded, humiliated, and tortured Jesus. Because of that, they have been raised up with Christ in his Glory.
Thomas’ attitude in front of the risen Christ is an invitation to see with the eyes of our faith in their wounds and humiliations participation in the sufferings of Christ. Being in that state of contemplation, their life like Jesus’ life is going to be an important offering for the salvation of the world. We should not forget that we form a community in the sense that we were practically moved by the same situation of life that brings us to face almost the same difficulties. Our strength stands on our capacity to help the migrants, the refugees, and the foreigners. Our advocacy for the rights of those poor people should be a result of a collaboration and unity against the manipulation of ideologies or politics. Let us join our voices to those who are already engaged in that field of humanization and solidarity with migrants and refugees.
To sum up, Jesus didn’t find a place in a hospice when he came on the earth. Despite that, he incarnated himself and dwelt among us to take away our sins. Let Jesus touch our hearts and carry with him the weight of our fears that restraint us from helping our migrant brothers and sisters. Let us encounter him in their faces so as to bring them peace, joy, and happiness. From their painful experiences let us be aware of the power of our faith that can move us to the audacious projects. Blessed are those “who did accept him. Because he gave them power to become children of God, to all who believe in the name of him who was born not out of human stock or urge of the flesh or will of man but of God himself.” May God bless the migrants and their benefactors.
[1]NAB, JOHN 1, 9-11.
