Was Jesus An Illegal Alien?

Matthew 2:13-15

Rev. Doug Hodges 

After Jesus was born, scholars from the East came to visit him in Bethlehem.  They were supposed to report back to King Herod about the location of the new born king.  But a dream advised them not to do so.  Matthew's reason for reporting this incident is clear.  Herod planned to kill the baby Jesus.

          Then Matthew tells us that Joseph also had a dream.  In this dream an angel told him to take Mary and Jesus and flee to Egypt, because Herod was out to kill Jesus.  Joseph obeyed the angel and fled to Egypt with the baby and his mother.  There they lived to the death of Herod, who died in 4BCE. 

This part is clear.  But what is not clear are many of the missing details of this immigration to Egypt. 

Did Joseph go down to the Egyptian counsel ate and apply for a visa and green card the next morning?  Probably not.  Matthew says that Joseph fled in the night.  More than likely the consulate did not keep evening hours.  More than likely they just up and went—with little concern for formalities.

When they got to the border—how did they enter Egypt?  Did they walk up to the crossing guard and explain:  "God told me to immigrate to Egypt?  Did the border guard say, "Sure, just come on in?"  Or did Joseph and Mary and their child sneak across in the night?  Did the Egyptians even have border guards?  Truth is, we don't know.

And how would the Holy Family have been treated once they got into Egypt.  Maybe there was a shortage of carpenters there at the time and the immigrants were welcomed with open arms.  Or maybe there was hostility.  Maybe there were county supervisors shouting from a soap box that Egypt had enough carpenters.  Carpenters from Judea will only take away jobs from Egyptians.  The truth is we don't know what was said.  Matthew is silent about how the Holy Family was treated in Egypt.

But what I can imagine is how the Holy Family would be treated if they immigrated to the United States under similar circumstances.  No doubt Mary, Joseph, and Jesus would have been classified as "Ilegals."  It's unlikely that Joseph could have gotten a job as a union carpenter.  Maybe Mary could have worked as a dishwasher and worked her way up to be the nanny for a Democratic lawyer.  And maybe Joseph could have gotten a job raking the lawn of a Republican governor.

 Like 77% of most first generation immigrants, it is unlikely that Mary and Joseph would have learned much English.  But Jesus no doubt, like 83% of the next generation would have learned English. 

Jesus would have gone to public elementary and high school.  But if Jesus had applied to a state college, someone might have asked for proof of citizenship and he might have been deported.

Mary and Joseph would have had taxes and social security deducted from their wages.  But they would not be able to apply for a tax refund and they would have known they would never collect social security.  They would likely have used few government services, because they were self reliant and they also would have known that the more services for which they applied, the greater the chance some one would have discovered their immigration status.

Of course you realize Mary and Joseph did not enter this country.  They entered ancient Egypt.  And from what we gather from Matthew—they likely only stayed in Egypt a year or two.  For Matthew tells us that after the death of Herod, they returned to Israel and settled in Galilee.  Jesus in time grew to be an adult who went about calling men and women to submit to the rule of God.  So what does God say about immigration. 

Remember how it all began.  God called Abraham to leave his home and become an immigrant and stranger in a land that God would later show him.  Later, Abraham's grandson and great grand children were invited to live as immigrants in Egypt at a time when we know Egypt had a liberal immigration policy.  Then a harsher administration reversed Egypt's immigration policy and made then descendants of the immigrants slaves.  Still later God freed the slaves.  The freed made their way back to Palestine and forged a new nation. 

During this process of nation building, there was, no doubt much discussion about immigration and who was an Israelite and who was not.  Likely, not all the people who left Egypt in the exodus were descendants of Israel.  And likely, once they settled in the Promised Land there were no fences to prevent migration between one nation to another.  In fact, in the eyes of the inhabitants of Palestine, the Israelis were illegal immigrants.  But that's another story.  The point is, Israel needed an immigration policy, and God gave them one.  Remember the Old Testament lesson: Leviticus 19, 33,34: 

"When an alien resides with you in your land, you shall not oppress the alien... you shall love the alien as yourself for you were aliens in the Land of Egypt.  I am the Lord your God." 

The policy that God dictated to Israel was one of compassion for the immigrant—grounded in Israel's history that they too had been immigrants in Egypt.

And our Lord Jesus, when he laid out his immigration policy in the closing chapters of Matthew, no doubt recalled the words of Leviticus and the experience of his own family in Egypt.  "When you welcome the stranger of the alien," Jesus said, "it is as if you are welcoming me."

Finally we have the words of the writer of the book of Hebrews.  This writer said that all of the faithful are but aliens/strangers/sojourners on this earth.  Even though one nation claims this plot of land and another nation claims that plot of land, in God's eyes, this is not our home:  "All those who died in faith . . . confessed that they were stranger and foreigners on the earth.  They desired a better country, that is a heavenly one. . . ."

Today, in the United States of America, immigration—legal and illegal is a complex problem.  Some say that illegal immigrants are taking away jobs from American citizens and suppressing wages at the lower end of the wage scale.  I suspect that the first claim is not true, but the second claim that wages of low income jobs have been suppressed by cheap labor.  Others say that illegal immigrants are necessary to our economy and are filling jobs that Americans will not do.  Indeed I suspect that if we built an airplane big enough to take all of the 12 million estimated illegal immigrants in our nation back to their home land tomorrow—food would lie rotting in our fields and our economy would feel a major earthquake.  

Immigration legal and illegal is a complex issue.  It affects our economy, our culture, and our relationship with our neighbor.  I doubt if there is any one size fits all solution to all the problems and issues associated with illegal immigration.  Indeed, when the president and members of congress tried to tackle the problem of illegal immigration, their plans quickly began to unravel when individual members of congress were asked to vote. 

I am not here this morning to propose any political solution.  But as Christians, I urge you to view this issue with compassion—loving the immigrant, even as we love ourselves and remembering that even though this is a world divided into nations and borders and fences and my land and your land and our land and their land—remember it is One God who is the God of all nations.  One God loves this whole wide world so much.  And One God who sent Jesus into this world to save this whole wide world.