Biblical immigration stories of the Nativity

Happy Christmas. As the legendary ex-Beatle John Lennon once wrote in a song: “And so this is Christmas, and what have you done, another year over, and a new one just begun…”

For the author, among the last-minute to-dos of the year, aside from making lists and buying special gifts and giving love on Christmas Day (yes, a big high-five to the Jackson Five), was to cobble together an apposite piece for the occasion.

And what’s more fitting, topically, than writing about biblical immigration stories of the Nativity for a quiet Christmas Day reverie?

Let’s start with the Holy Family’s epoch-making journey from Galilee to Judea. According to biblical scholars, Joseph had to travel with his pregnant wife Mary to Bethlehem to comply with the Roman Emperor’s directive for all Roman subjects to register for the census in their towns of birth.

Being a descendant of David, Joseph had to go back to Bethlehem, a town in Judea about 90 miles from the Galilean town of Nazareth. While both territories were under Roman rule at the time, each had its own distinct cultural, political, and religious nuances as centers of Jewish population. Thus, in a technical sense, Joseph and Mary’s travel, at a time when geopolitical boundaries for immigration purposes were non-existent, was a form of migration.

It was an act of immigration for an official business purpose, like today’s B-1 visitor’s visa to the US.

Since Mary was riding on a donkey while Joseph was journeying on foot, estimates of their travel time ranged from four days to a week, across arid deserts and barren plateaus, with occasional treks through coastal plains and river banks.

Upon arriving in Bethlehem, there was no room available, and thus Mary had to give birth in a stable, where the infant Jesus was laid in a manger.

Sometime after the Nativity, a trio of Wise Men from the East, called astrologers/astronomers in modern times, traveled from a faraway place presumed to be Babylon to honor the Messiah, bearing gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.

Since ancient Babylon was located near the present-day Baghdad, which was hundreds of miles, distance-wise, from Judea, some scholars suggested that the Wise Men, guided by a heavenly star, arrived at their destination when Jesus was no longer an infant but was already living in a regular house.

Still, the fact that they embarked on such a lengthy journey from a foreign territory for a gift-giving visit meant that they, too, engaged in immigration activity, albeit for a casual, non-business purpose.

Under the present setup, their gift-giving sojourn would qualify under the B-2 visitor’s visa category for pleasure or tourism. It can also be classified as a visa waiver entry since they came from a friendly territory.

Lastly, the Holy Family’s urgent, midnight flight to Egypt to evade King Herod’s “Massacre of the Innocents” campaign was also an act of immigration, albeit of a sui generis variety.

Since they traveled to a foreign territory to escape death and persecution after being forewarned in a dream by a celestial being, they undertook what is called an asylum-based migration — through divine intervention.

A question worth pondering: Did immigration help usher in the birth of Christendom? It’s an intriguing proposition for those who’re paying attention.