Reporting of BastaBugie editorial team
Rereading the Gospel (the real one), Let's dispel the most popular misconceptions about Jesus in our time, Joseph and Mary
Of Antonio Socci

Dal 2013 […] the idea of ​​the Holy Family as a family of migrants is relaunched. With an obvious political implication. […] In Acquaviva delle sources, in the province of Bari, they made a nativity scene (see photo) where Joseph and Mary are two migrants who are drowning in a sea of ​​bottles and baby Jesus (of color) he's inside a life jacket.
But this idea is well founded “Migrant Christ”? The answer is simple: no. The Gospel tells a completely different story.

THE TRUE STORY
Meanwhile it must be said that the people of Israel, two thousand years ago, he suffered from Roman domination and the yearning for freedom and independence was so strong that he imagined the Messiah as the political liberator of his people from the oppression of the foreigner.
The Romans imposed a census of their subjects. Thus Joseph and Mary also depart from Nazareth (where Maria lived and where, probably, Joseph also lived) towards Bethlehem, not as migrants to a foreign land, ma, like all the Jews of the time, to carry out the census procedures.
Since Joseph – who was the head of the family and therefore the “legal representative” – he belonged to the tribe of Judah, to be precise to the house of King David – they had to go to Bethlehem which was the city of origin of his family.
This means that by going to Bethlehem they did not emigrate to a foreign land, On the contrary, the opposite: Joseph returned to his homeland, in which he was even known as a man of royal lineage.
Even if the Davidic lineage, over the centuries, had decayed and Giuseppe was a craftsman (let's say he belonged to the middle class of the time), formally he could be considered a prince in his land.
Probably, in Bethlehem, Joseph still had some property, a bit’ of land, because later Hegesippus, at the time of Domitian, testifies that the relatives of Jesus are still alive and known and have fields that they work personally and that, according to historians, they had to be right there’ “ager Bethlemiticus”.
THE HOTEL
The journey to Bethlehem, in a caravan with others, it lasted a few days and was very tiring because Maria was in the ninth month of pregnancy and upon arrival in Bethlehem the signs of imminent birth were already beginning.
The Gospel of Luke tells us that “there was no room for them in the hotel” (2,7). But what does the word mean in this case? “inn”? And why “for them”?
These are not the hotels of today. Since Bethlehem was a passing point for caravans going down to Egypt, it was there, it takes so long, a resting place for such caravans (indeed a caravanserai, in Hebrew “geruth”, guesthouse) which had been built by Chamaan, perhaps the son of a friend of Davide.
Giuseppe Ricciotti, in his “Life of Jesus Christ” explains that, upon the arrival of Mary and Joseph, “the small village was full of people, who had stayed a while’ everywhere starting from the caravanserai”.
Which it was “a mediocre open-air space, enclosed by a rather high wall” con “a shelter porch” and with “the animals that were gathered in the middle of the courtyard”.
In that din of crowded people “we discussed business and prayed to God, we sang and slept, we ate and defecated”.
Therefore when the evangelist says that “there was no place for them”, you have to understand – explains Ricciotti – than for Maria's particular conditions, about to give birth, it was not a suitable place. There was no privacy that was necessary for a young woman giving birth.
It is not known whether Giuseppe was able to search the homes of friends and relatives (also full of people) or if – given the absolute urgency – he quickly decided to take refuge in the solitude of that animal shelter which could perhaps be located right on the land he owned.
This was obviously a dirty place too, but at least he was lonely, quiet and guaranteed confidentiality.
ESTABLISHED IN BETHLEHEM
After giving birth, done under emergency conditions, Joseph was able to immediately find accommodation and in fact Jesus' family settled with the child in Bethlehem, which was precisely the city of Joseph and Jesus, which, not by chance, as an adult he will be defined by people “son of David”, descendant of King David (as the prophecies said of the Messiah). In fact, Jesus was also of royal lineage, he was a prince of his people.
This is exactly what unleashed Herod. Having known, in the months following his birth, by the Magi, that a potential claimant to the kingdom of Israel had come to light and that he was born in Bethlehem, Erode (Idumean on his father's side and Arab on his mother's side) tried to eliminate it.
I Magi, who arrived to track down Jesus a few months after his birth (then to a house in Bethlehem, no longer in the cave), they had left the child gold, incense and myrrh.
That gold was very important for the Holy Family who had to escape Herod. Because he allowed them to go to Egypt (which was always under the Romans) and settle there until Herod died.
ESCAPE AND RETURN HOME
So: the flight of the Holy Family was not due to a desire to emigrate, but at the first anti-Christian persecution.
So, if we really want to remember them as refugees, we should talk about today's persecuted Christians more than about current migrants, which, come to, they are mostly driven by economic and work reasons. Yet no one talks about the events of the Holy Family, remembering today's persecuted Christians as they should.
Secondly, there was no mass migration underway to a foreign land. Nor in Egypt were there refugee camps subsidized and paid for by public coffers where one could stay for a long time.
In Egypt Joseph supported his family by doing his job for a few months. But already the following year they learned of Herod's death and so Jesus' family returned home, choosing Nazareth this time, Maria's village (where Giuseppe had probably also lived).
They lived there permanently and Jesus himself practiced his father's profession until the beginning of his public life. Therefore it is not clear how their story can be compared to today's mass migratory flows.
LAST MISUNDERSTANDING
There is one last misunderstanding to clarify. The prologue of the Gospel of St. John says: “the world was made through him,/ yet the world did not recognize him. / He came among his people / but his own did not welcome him”.
These words do not refer to a failure to welcome someone who does not exist “Migrant Jesus”, but to the failure to accept his announcement. In fact, Jesus died crucified. That is, it refers to the Christian faith.
Jesus did not come into the world to sponsor the chaotic migration policy desired by globalists today, but he came to announce that God became man and is present among us to defeat evil and death.
Note from BastaBugie: Massimo Viglione in the following article entitled “A little liberating thought for Christmas” clarifies once and for all some questions about the Holy Family.
Here is the complete article published on Confederazione Triarii on November December 2018:
At that time, Let's clarify once and for all:
1) Joseph and Mary and had to flee their homeland to save the newborn Jesus, as he was already wanted to be killed: Indeed, the massacre of the innocents occurred;
2) Joseph left only because he was ordered to do so by an angel;
3) The three of them left, in perfect silence, alone, because they are truly necessitated by supreme motivation;
4) they didn't ask anyone for help: there were no international organizations to bring them, there were no laws or states on their side;
5) therefore, they did not invade anyone, being three, in silence, in humility, claiming nothing, but only by obeying;
6) No one got rich from their escape: avoid bees, neither HIM, nor parishes and Church, nor mayors, nor married, nor movements, nor mafia or organized crime;
7) For Joseph and Mary this was a very hard test, who lived with perfect self-denial and obedience, but in very certain personal and family suffering; if it were up to them, they would never, ever leave home and country;
8) Indeed, as soon as an angel told Joseph of Herod's death, and therefore the possibility of returning to their homeland, they immediately returned to their homeland, in silence as they had come: for them it was the greatest joy, be able to return home;
9) During the time they lived in Egypt, they did it in silence and humility, living off their work, not imposing anything on anyone but making yourself loved by foreign people;
10) returned home, they lived in prayer, Work, silence and humility. E, Obviously, in charity. If today we know this story, it is only because the One who inspired the Gospels wanted it that way, for the purpose of teaching patience, of the humble and silent endurance of personal suffering, of the valorization of the meaning of the cross. And for comfort to all those who really, without fault, they are forced into exile.
Vi fu la “flight to Egypt”, not i “refugees in Egypt”.
If you really want to help those in difficulty, just do as the Church has always done 19 previous centuries: give help and relief, bringing both Christ and the Church and material goods, without demanding, without boasting, without claiming, without being slaves to the world and its subversive ideologies, without causing invasions of our lands, without getting rich, without hating Europeans. Anyone who exploits the Gospel for his own purposes, he is an unworthy liar and servant of the enemy forces of Christianity and Europeans, Italians, in the first place.

Original title: The Migrant Christ
Source: Libero, 10/12/2018
Published on BastaBugie n. 591