Christmas reflection part 1

Baby Jesus the Migrant

Let’s call them Yusuf and Maryam, and little Isa – he’s nearly 2 now, walking, talking and full of curiosity. So they have relatives here, and Mariam is pregnant with baby two. As there are no humanitarian visas, resettlement schemes or safe legal routes from Palestine, they somehow, through a series of unkept promises, unfortunate circumstances and untrustworthy guides, find themselves on a dark beach somewhere near Calais, with toddler Isa bewildered by the torches and shouting men, being crammed hurriedly onto an orange dinghy bound for the English channel.

Yusuf can swim in the warm river water around Nazareth, but doubts his ability to keep his precious family safe if there are large waves and the flimsy boat capsizes. Why did the Magi have to alert Herod to their existence? Some ‘wise men’! Maryam can still hear reverberating through her memory the screams as Herod’s soldiers snatched their neighbours’ precious sons from their mothers’ arms and blood flowed…  the wailing of Rachel mourning for her children is still the soundtrack to her nightmares. 

There’s petrol mixed with the saltwater swilling around their sandals in the bottom of the boat. They had to leave everything except their phones behind, including Yusuf’s carpentry tools – how is he going to afford to buy some more to make a living for their family? If the sun is hot and they’re stranded just sitting there, Isa will dehydrate badly… 

Mouths parched, stiff, exhausted and knowing this experience will be etched permanently into the psyche of little Isa, they finally stagger gratefully onto a pebbly beach somewhere in Kent. There seems to be a vitriolic group yelling at them to “go home!” – they would infinitely prefer to be safely back at home right now among friends and family…but they are accustomed to hostility and too bone-weary to engage right now.  

“I was a stranger and you welcomed me.”