Migrations

Then you shall declare before the LORD your God: "My father was a wandering Aramaean, and he went down into Egypt with a few people and lived there and became a great nation, powerful and numerous. But the Egyptians ill-treated us and made us suffer, putting us to hard labour. Then we cried out to the LORD, the God of our fathers, and the LORD heard our voice and saw our misery, toil and oppression. So the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a mighty hand and an outstretched arm, with great terror and with miraculous signs and wonders. He brought us to this place and gave us this land, a land flowing with milk and honey. And now I bring the first fruits of the soil that you, O LORD, have given me." Deuteronomy 26:5-10 NIV

Migration is a phenomenon that applies not only to the human race but also to much of nature. We wonder at the extraordinary movements of birds, summer by summer, making their way to their northern feeding grounds and then returning southwards for the winter.

Among humans there were vast migrations even before written history began. As a student of languages, I used to learn about the massive people movements that must have taken place in time out of mind. Early populations would have moved en masse from central Asia and fanned out right through Europe, taking their languages with them.

Nowadays the issue of migration is very much a talking point. Many thousands are desperate to get from their homelands in Africa and Asia and make their way to the west. In an effort to make sense of it all, we try to classify them as either economic migrants or political refugees. Economic migrants are mostly seen as wishing to take advantage of the affluence of the developed world, unless they can contribute skills that the receiving country particularly needs. Political migrants may find a more sympathetic reception. These are people who go in the fear of their lives because of conditions in their home countries. In practice it is often not possible to determine which motive is uppermost in the mind of a particular migrant.

There is much about migration in the Bible. The Exodus of the Israelites from Egypt into the Promised Land is burned into the consciousness of the Jewish people and indeed Christians to this very day. The model of Christians as people on a journey looms large in the book of Hebrews. In Hebrews 12:13-14 we read that the Lord Jesus was hounded to death as an outsider and His followers too are outsiders in this world:

“… Jesus also suffered outside the gate in order to sanctify the people through his own blood. Therefore let us go to him outside the camp and bear the reproach he endured. For here we have no lasting city, but we seek the city that is to come.” (ESV)

Because true citizens of God’s Kingdom are looking for another and better country, they are never prepared to compromise with the worldly conditions and expectations that they find around them. We may have all the trappings of affluence. Yet we cannot simply rest content with the status we have now. The Lord Jesus made these pointed remarks:

And when you fast, do not look gloomy like the hypocrites, for they disfigure their faces that their fasting may be seen by others. Truly, I say to you, they have received their reward (Matthew 6:16)

In other words, in the admiration people give them they have already had all the reward they are going to get.

In what I call the Great Reversal, Jesus repeatedly states how the downtrodden will receive blessing in the next life. Remember, too, that He said about Himself that He had nowhere to lay His head (Matthew 8:20).

None of this means that we can in any way romanticise the aching issues of migration, the human dramas that are going on around us. But it does remind us that the human race is not programmed to be stuck in a groove. We are to embrace change – first and foremost the change of repentance: the 180° turnaround from sin to righteousness, from rejecting Christ to accepting Him. Then we go on to move deliberately to the pattern of service that God has for us, which may take us well away from the familiar and comfortable.