Friday, February 20, 2015

Would we welcome the baby, Jesus, into our community?

Pax Christi USA has developed a tool kit to be used during lent on immigration reform. For those of us with a Christian backround we are well aware that Jesus and his father, Joseph, and his mother, Mary, were immigrants who fled from Israel to Egypt.

Herod, in his paranoia, had all the 2 year old children in the region under his domain killed. The United States has faced its own dilemma recently with what to do with immigrant children. There was a proposal in my own home town, Brockport, NY, to develop a former Walmart Store for residential care for these immigrant children which would be funded by the Federal government, but many local people opposed it, including our Congressman Chris Collins, and these children were sent away as they were not welcome in our town. Brockporters would have sent Jesus away and that is very sad. We have forgotten that we are one family under God. May we remember this Lent, repent, and change our attitudes and ways.

Matthew 2:13-23

When they had departed, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Rise,
take the child and his mother, flee to Egypt, and stay there until I tell you. Herod is going to search
for the child to destroy him.” Joseph rose and took the child and his mother by night and departed for
Egypt. He stayed there until the death of Herod, that what the Lord had said through the prophet
might be fulfilled, “Out of Egypt I called my son.”

When Herod realized that he had been deceived by the magi, he became furious. He ordered the
massacre of all the boys in Bethlehem and its vicinity two years old and under, in accordance with the
time he had ascertained from the magi. Then was fulfilled what had been said through Jeremiah the
prophet:

“A voice was heard in Ramah,
sobbing and loud lamentation;
Rachel weeping for her children,
and she would not be consoled,
since they were no more.”

When Herod had died, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared in a dream to Joseph in Egypt and
said, “Rise, take the child and his mother and go to the land of Israel, for those who sought the child’s
life are dead.” He rose, took the child and his mother, and went to the land of Israel. But when he
heard that Archelaus was ruling over Judea in place of his father Herod, he was afraid to go back
there. And because he had been warned in a dream, he departed for the region of Galilee. He went
and dwelt in a town called Nazareth, so that what had been spoken through the prophets might be
fulfilled, “He shall be called a Nazorean.”

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