TGC Writer: Jesus was a ‘Downwardly Mobile Migrant’ who Faced ‘Daunting Pressures of Exclusion and Insecurity’
An article appearing on The Gospel Coalition describes God’s incarnate son as a “downwardly mobile migrant” and “middle eastern refugee” who faced “daunting pressures of exclusion and insecurity.”
The post, written by Jenny Yang, serves to link legal and illegal migrants and immigrantsto the experience Jesus had when his parents fled to Egypt.
If the name ‘Jenny Yang’ sounds familiar to you, it should. She’s the senior vice president of advocacy and policy at World Relief and has been platformed by Russell Moore and the ERLC many times before, being a frequent conference speaker.
She’s the same woman who said at an immigration conference that “Human relationships are more important than theology” and that almost every major Biblical figure was a refugee.
In her post she writes:
God’s incarnate Son was both a downwardly mobile migrant––he left the realms of heaven and pitched his tent among men (John 1:14)––and a refugee fleeing a genocidal edict (Matt. 2:13). He intimately knows what it feels like to be a stranger in a foreign land. He identifies so much with strangers that when we welcome them, we are welcoming him (Matt. 25:31–46).
and
Every Christian is led by a Middle Eastern refugee who faced the daunting pressures of exclusion and insecurity and yet carried forth his duty to obey his Father and love his people. Jesus’s birth gives us hope that despite the challenging circumstances we face personally or societally, we can always find healing––and a home––in him.
Yang says that when she reads her bible, she sees a “theology of migration from Genesis to Revelation.” She concludes in her article:
Sorrow and joy are intermingled markers along a refugee’s journey, but the Christmas story is a reminder that our challenging circumstances don’t have the final word. Jesus does.”
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