JESUS, A REFUGEE IN FOREIGN LAND

29 DECEMBER: THE HOLY FAMILY

Although celebrating the Holy Family, this Sunday's gospel moves around the figure of Joseph and his role as guardian of the family.

Joseph put his live at the service of Jesus

He was a man of silence. No words of him are reported. He is always in the background, except when some difficult action has to be taken; then he comes in the forefront, doing whatever expected of him. He was a faithful servant, always ready to suffer inconvenience for the ones he loved. Mary and her needs took precedence over his own interests. And his life was totally at the service of Jesus. In fact, it is Jesus alone who gave meaning to his life, because according to the wisdom of the world is life was simply a wasted life.

They became refugees in Egypt

When we speak of the Holy Family, we main think of a family without problems, where everything was perfect and where all needs were satisfied. The Gospel of Matthew presents a very different picture. In order to protect his wife and and the baby Jesus, they had to run away to Egypt, in a hurry, in the middle of the night, because the tyrant Herod, afraid of is own shadow, was ready to kill the child as he had killed his own sons, afraid of loosing his grip on power.

Jesus' family went through the experience of thousands, in fact millions, of families who become refugees, running away from war, tyranny, oppression and starvation. Egypt, although being equated with the land of oppression, was in fact many times a land of refuge, where many people would find protection and abode.

The plight of the refugees

As we remember Jesus as a refugee in a foreign land, waiting for the best opportunity to god back to his homeland, we must remember the thousands of refugees who are running away from their own homes in order to escape the killings of war. In Syria, South Sudan and many other places...there are millions, suffering from the fight for power and the control of the wealth which should be shared by all. It is as the proverb says: When two elephants fight, the grass suffers.

Jesus went through the experience of his people

Jesus was a refugee in Egypt, as the people of Israel had been in ages past. As the Messiah, who comes to establish a new Covenant and liberate God’s people, Jesus goes through the experience of the people of Israel, that is through the human experience of suffering and rejection in order to transform it into a source of salvation.