Journey with God the Migrant

Lynne Baab • Tuesday September 9 2025

God doesn’t let King David build a temple in part because God wants to stay with the people of Israel, on the move. God speaks to David through the prophet Nathan: “I have been moving about in a tent and a tabernacle” (2 Samuel 7:6), referring to God’s presence with Israel during the time of the patriarchs, the captivity in Egypt, and the exodus from Egypt. At Christmas, we sing about one of Jesus’s names—Immanuel, God with us. God's presence all around us, beautifully expressed in Celtic poetry, is so comforting: God beside us to support us, within us to empower us, under us to uphold us, in front of us to guide us, and behind us to protect us. God came to earth in Jesus to make that possible.

Every week, I put my blog posts on Facebook as well as sending out an email to subscribers. Early in this series on journey, theologian Marty Folsom, author of Karl Barth's Church Dogmatics for Everyone, commented on Facebook in response to what I had written:

“Karl Barth talked about the journey of the Son into the Far Country and then the journey home. He sees our participation in this journey as our theological quest, then sharing His journey into the world to bring good news.”

In order for God to be with us, Jesus had to leave his home in heaven. Theologian Peter C. Phan uses the language of “God the Migrant” to describe the constant theme of movement in Jesus’s story. Dr. Phan emphasizes "Jesus’s status as a stranger and migrant in his own country" by highlighting

“his foreign ancestry (Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, and Bathsheba), his birth far from home (Luke 2:1–7), his and his family’s escape to Egypt as refugees (Matt 2:13–14), his ministry as a homeless and itinerant preacher who has nowhere to lay his head (Luke 9:58), his fate as an unwelcome stranger in his own country (John 1:11), and his self-identification with the stranger (Matt 25:35).” [1]

In a vivid paragraph Dr. Phan describes the ways that Jesus demonstrates his status as a migrant:

“Jesus carried out his ministry at the margins of his society. A migrant and border-crosser at the very roots of his being, Jesus . . . crossed these borders back and forth, repeatedly and freely, be they geographical, racial, gender, social, economic, political, cultural, or religious. What is new about his message about the kingdom of God, which is good news to some and scandal to others, is that for him it removes all borders serving as barriers, both natural and man-made, and is absolutely all-inclusive. Jesus invited Jews and non-Jews, men and women, the old and the young, the rich and the poor, the powerful and the weak, the healthy and the sick, the clean and the impure, the righteous and the sinners, and any other imaginable categories of peoples and groups, to enter into the house of his merciful and forgiving Father. Even in his ‘preferential option for the poor’ Jesus did not abandon and exclude the rich and the powerful. These, too, are called to conversion and to live a just, all-inclusive life.” [2]

Dr. Phan argues that without human migration, the Gospel wouldn’t have spread around the world. He also argues that we have a powerful call and obligation to care for migrants because we understand that God is a migrant. When migrants are “embraced, protected, and loved,” God the Migrant is “embraced, protected, and loved.” When migrants, who bear the image of God the Migrant, are “rejected, marginalized, declared ‘illegal,’ imprisoned, tortured, or killed,” we are actually subjecting God the Migrant to that same inhumane treatment. [3]

I found Dr. Phan’s article riveting. Thinking about the generosity of Jesus’s journey to earth for our sake makes my heart sing. At the same time, I grieve at the mistreatment and harm migrants have often experienced — and continue to experience in the United States and in many other parts of the world today. As a person trained in communication, I am painfully aware that we use language to create barriers between ourselves and others. Too often those “others” are migrants and foreigners.

We are invited to journey with Jesus into the world, to make known the goodness of God, the Good News of Jesus’s love for us. As Marty Folsom says, this is our quest.

Jesus, Redeemer, we praise and thank you for your willingness to become a migrant for our sakes. Our hearts soar at the wonder of your willingness to sacrifice your home in heaven for us. At the same time, our hearts are heavy as we think about the millions of migrants in our world who suffer in so many ways. We want to embrace, protect, and love those who are created in your image, but the needs are overwhelming and far beyond our resources. Help us grieve with you and listen to your guidance for being your people in this hurting world.

֍ ֍ ֍

Next week: Journey and attention. Illustration by Dave Baab: Blueskin Bay, New Zealand

֍ ֍ ֍

Two ways to subscribe.

If you’d like to receive an email when I post on this blog, sign up below under “subscribe.” That email and the posts on this blog are free and accessible for all.

If you’d like to help me cover the expenses for this blog and website, plus get a bonus post every month, you can subscribe on Patreon for $3 or $6 per month. My bonus posts focus on one or more of the hundreds of vivid quotations I’ve collected over five decades.

[1] and [2] Peter C. Phan, “Deus Migrator — God the Migrant: Migration of Theology and Theology of Migration,”Theological Studies, 2016, Vol. 77(4), 862.
[3] Ibid, 861.

« Previous post

Lynne Baab