Jesus the Refugee

I have little experience ministering to refugees. Most of it came in Greece. In a camp outside of Athens, my wife and I helped make a meal for hundreds of people. Their escape from brutality in other countries, led them to this community of tents. At a refugee center inside Athens, we served meals to dozens of men. All had been displaced, and were desperate for help.

It was also my assignment to preach to them; to share the power of the good news. My greatest concern was that they not see me a rich American, with a passport and plane ticket that would soon take me home. If they only looked at me that way, we would have nothing in common. I prayed that the message of Jesus would bridge the gap.

Jill Briscoe faced the same challenge. Speaking to a gathering of 200 newly arrived refugees in Croatia, she wondered what to say. Most of the refugees were women, because the men were dead or at war. Jill felt completely inadequate to talk to people who had suffered so much, lost so much, and faced death every day. She prayed, “God, give me something they can identify with.”

She told them about Jesus, who as a baby became a refugee. He was hunted by soldiers, and his parents had to flee to Egypt at night, leaving everything behind. She told them of Jesus’ life, and then his death on the cross. She said, “He hung there naked, not like the pictures tell you.” The women knew what she meant. Many of them had been stripped naked and tortured.

At the end of the message, Jill said, “All these things have happened to you. You are homeless. You have had to flee. You have suffered unjustly. But you didn’t have a choice. He had a choice. He knew all this would happen to him, but he still came.” Then she told them why Jesus came to suffer and die. Many of the women knelt down, put their hands up, and wept. Jill said, “He’s the only one who really understands. I cannot possibly understand, but he can. He’s the suffering God. You can give your pain to him.”

That news is not simply true for refugees. It’s for all of us. As we celebrate the death, burial, and resurrection of Jesus, we rejoice that we have a God who understands our need, can shoulder our pain, and who rescues us from our lost condition. As Isaiah prophesied about the Messiah: “It was our weaknesses he carried; it was our sorrows that weighed him down….he was wounded and crushed for our sins. He was beaten that we might have peace. He was whipped, and we were healed!”